The Barbossa Exchange
by Fiona Fargazer
Summary: A young sailor seeking refuge in a tavern during a storm makes a deal with a very old seaman to see who can tell the best tale about the infamous pirate captain, Barbossa, and both find out how the other knows him. It goes in and out between them and a series of flashbacks.
1. A Real Crew

JMJ

The Barbossa Exchange

By Fiona Fargazer

 **Note: This fic is based on a series of in-person role plays I did with two other people, but I rounded it out and turned into a story. Its based on the movies only. I had no idea until I went to the wikia to get some names of people and places right how big of a deal the expanded universe is in PotC. It's also important the assumption that Pintel was in his 40s (minus the ten-year-curse in which we assume nobody's aged) in the original 3 movies. The fic is also heavily influenced by movie 5. Oh, and I guess, just one more thing, maybe it'll be obvious but not everything in the flashbacks are what it actually be told to Ellis.  
**

ONE: A REAL CREW

 _Melodramatic perhaps, but it was a dark and stormy night. The Edmée would not have made it to the port of its true destination in such a tempest. This small fishing town was a fortunate thing as it was; though Captain Praxton said that he had stopped here once before in a storm not too much different than this one. The first mate whispered that such déjà vu was an ominous sign but the captain ignored him._

 _Déjà vu or not, Ellis could not help but feel that the night certainly felt ominous even after coming to the warmth of the inn's tavern he came to. Most of the crew had gone to the only other inn in town, but it had been overflowed as the Edmée had not been the only ship to seek refuge in the village. Thus Ellis and a few of his fellows were forced into this one. This one might have looked ominous had the sun been shining and a good wind blowing, but Ellis was more intrigued than daunted._

 _Having ordered a drink he sat down by himself and looked around the dim orange glow. No older than seventeen with a face that showed naivety and gentle spirit from across the bar, he was practically a young finch among crows even with the fine gulls of his crew keeping together on the other side of the bar. Some brief sinister leers passed Ellis by but otherwise none of the crows paid the least bit attention to him, nor did he particularly pay heed to any one crow in particular until he heard not far away from him, one very ancient crow mention a certain "Sparrow."_

 _Now certainly there was tales of a certain Jack Sparrow in plenty, and Ellis had heard them all his life. What seaman had not? It roused the finch's ear every time he heard his name, nonetheless. They seemed never ending, his escapades and fortunes. A pirate, true, but a creature of no time or place or even trade, for he was more than a pirate, they said. Not as ruthless but very cunning and beyond life itself. Indeed, beyond life itself, for many said he still sailed the seas to this day, but Ellis knew that such a possibility was unlikely. Jack had to be as old as that shriveled old bird who spoke of him now if he was not dead already, and that man looked as though he was on his last thread as it was, and the tale he spoke of was one Ellis had heard before._

 _The finch would have gone back to his drink and forgotten the mention. He might have flocked over to the gulls, but just as he was shutting the croaky groan of the old man out, he heard another name which roused his ear far more, "Barbossa."_

 _Ellis smiled wryly and turned to the old man who claimed to have known him personally to his audience, and quite proudly with a withered hand to his chest and the remaining rotting teeth in his mouth forming into what might be called a grin._

" _Ah, you say it, but you ain't no pirate, y'ol' dog, not to wind up in a hole like this!" laughed a far younger cohort._

 _Ellis shook his head, still smiling and returned to his mug._

" _So whatcha know about Captain Barbossa, boy?"_

 _Ellis jumped and turned to the old withered face, more skull than flesh who leered with beady eyes that seemed to pierce the boy right through his skull and out the other side. His body may have been threadbare, but his eyes were as alive as fire coals._

" _Yeah, you," growled the man thrusting a knotted finger towards him. "C'mere, I dare ya."_

 _A few seconds Ellis remained still and staring wide eyes at the man that he could certainly believe to have been a pirate at one time even if he had not known Barbossa._

" _He ain't gunna bite, boy," laughed one of the other cohorts. "His teeth can barely bite his bread and his finger can barely hold his mug much less a trigger."_

" _He'll only talk you to death is all till y'r ears hear nothin' but skeleton dreams for days t'come."_

 _Ellis made a face. He was not afraid of him. Standing up he moved closer, taking a seat offered him after the old man violently shooed one of the others away, so that he almost lost balance in his own seat._

 _The old man grinned again almost as vilely as the foulness of his breath. His forehead was broad and flat and only a very small bit of gray strands of hair wisped behind his crooked ears. His small flat nose made him look almost like some deranged monkey. Now that Ellis was near too, he could see easily that his short and broad-boned frame had hid from a distance how very thin he was beneath his ragged cloak; but like an old knotted oak he was not going anywhere at that moment, somehow. Life, though twisted this individual, remained strong enough in his bones, and his grin was by no means senile. A pride, a humor, and even just a touch of anger hid behind it, and he spoke again._

" _What you think you know about Captain Barbossa?" he demanded, his smile fading and his wide eyed leer remaining. "He's nothing to laugh about."_

" _I didn't think you mentioning Barbossa was funny," remarked Ellis surprisingly candidly even if he did lean back to avoid the old man's breath, "I thought you knowing him was."_

 _He took a drink from his mug. "Well, somebody had to know 'im!"_

" _Not you at a personal level though, I bet," said Ellis._

" _What? You callin' me a liar, boy?" said the old man tersely. "You prob'ly never even met a pirate afore!"_

" _Have you?" asked the boy._

 _The other two men laughed._

" _I been at sea m' whole life," retorted the man, "and you ain't prob'ly seen nothin' but bright seas till this storm out on the sea, and a tame sea it really is out there now. Who doya think you are?"_

" _Be easy on the boy, blighter," laughed one of the cohorts._

" _Let me be while I'm keepin' the mood!" growled the old man, dropping his mug roughly on the counter._

 _In good humor, though they still commented a bit more and one swore a curse under his breath, they withdrew and looked back at the boy mockingly._

 _The old man ignored them once they left though Ellis followed them a moment with the turn of his head._

" _You still didn't answer the question," rumbled the man._

 _Ellis turned back. "What question?"_

" _Who are you?"_

" _Ellis," said Ellis. He had been told from a young age to keep one's surname to oneself in dark places even if this old man seemed harmless enough._

 _The man snorted, but did not press._

" _So did you?" asked Ellis._

" _Did I what, Ellis?" He spat out his name with utter disdain._

" _Know Barbossa."_

" _Did I know Barbossa?" the man snorted again. "Did I know Barbossa?"_

" _Well, it's what you were bragging about up to this point," Ellis pointed out._

" _Of course I knew Barbossa!" hissed the man suddenly dangerously close to Ellis' face._

 _Ellis cleared his throat. "How exactly?"_

" _I was one of his best men," said the man leaning back as well as he could on his hunched shoulders, and he took up his mug again._

" _So you were a pirate?"_

" _Funny that ol' Jack was right about people not b'lievin' it when you actchuly tell people," muttered the man and he took a slug of rum._

" _And you knew Jack Sparrow now too, huh?"_

" _Sure, I did."_

" _And was it as wild and cursed as they say hanging around the infamous Jack Sparrow?"_

" _But you don't care about Jack Sparrow," muttered the man._

" _Don't I?" asked Ellis._

" _No. You said you know about Barbossa," said the man banging his mug again. "What you know about Barbossa?"_

" _That he was an infamous privateer for the English government. That he owned a fleet of ships that were the scourge of the seas. That he was cold, ruthless, and unbeatable, and that he was more a real pirate than Jack Sparrow."_

" _Humph! You c'n say that again," muttered the man, "but he wasn't always a privateer. There's much more to Captain Barbossa than privateerin'. I'm still s'prised he did it, but then things were mighty different after the night we lost the Pearl and he lost his leg not to mention most of the crew. It was only me an' Ragetti who survived it with the captain sides those two wannabe pirates that I got no notion how they managed. But it wouldn'ta been the captain neither if it weren't for us."_

" _So now you saved Captain Barbossa," said Ellis smiling again._

" _You think I'm lyin'," said the man darkly and atmospherically; he might have made a good play actor with how much melodrama he oozed. "I'll tell ya 'bout Barbossa, boy. I'll tell ya more than you ever wanted to know. He was more than some privateer sittin' on his butt. I can tell ya. Outwitted Jack Sparrow more than once, and that's somethin' to talk about. You think you can handle it with a pamby name like Ellis? Cursed men, cursed treasure, and cursed ships, the lot. Barbossa's tales can match Jack's by anythin'." He paused, the atmosphere paused with him as he shrugged thoughtfully a moment, "Though they were together often enough."_

" _You mean because they both got involved with the curse of the Flying Dutchman?" asked Ellis._

" _Oh, b'fore that. The gold. The Aztec gold. You ever hear of that?"_

" _Not much," Ellis admitted. "And not in direct connection with Barbossa."_

" _Ha!" snorted the old man again. "Then you don't know nothin'."_

" _I'll make you a deal, uh…" Ellis paused before he held out his hand, not so much because he did not want to touch him (though the man's hand was pretty grimy), but because he didn't know what to call him._

" _Pintel. What sorta deal? I tell you what you want to know and you'll try to beat it, is that it?"_

 _Ellis shrugged. "Yeah. Something like that."_

 _Pintel rubbed his chin and leered at Ellis distrustfully. Then suddenly he grabbed the boy's hand; though it shook slightly, the old man's grip was tighter than Ellis thought it would be._

" _Deal! The Barbossa exchange it is!"_

" _The Barbossa exchange it is," agreed the boy._

" _I'll go first!" growled Pintel. "Mine's better by anythin' you got by a long shot. I know it full more than anything you know. I lived through it. I lived through it all."_

" _Well, go on."_

" _A'right! Hang on a moment! I'm older than I look! Older by ten years!" Pintel snapped. He took a drink and wet his throat. He smacked his lips moistly and clicked his rotting teeth before slamming (or dropping really, for his strength was a waning thing) his mug down a third time. Then after a thoughtful pause Pintel said, "It began with these words '_ _an island as what cannot be found…'"_

#

—about 60 years earlier.

"…'save those who know where it is,'" finished Jack with a grin.

Just barely old enough to be considered more than a lad, Jack was one that sometimes Bootstrap himself had to wonder why he followed him. If that was not enough he often looked younger, or ageless, perhaps might be the word, almost pixie-like. He would have made a good faun at that time in his life, but though clever and roguish and having wisdom in some areas, he was in the end just a lad, even if luck seemed to follow him wherever he went. For those who knew him least and most knew he was as naïve about some things as though he were still a cabin boy. It was those in between who thought him all-knowing.

No one knew him better than Bootstrap Bill at that time; though even to Bootstrap his beginnings were mysterious as though he may have been just about spawned by fairies for all he knew, but that did not stop him from his surprise as he stopped midway down the gangplank.

He had told the crew the tale of the Isla de Meurta not long after they were originally recruited. Where Jack had heard it, none asked, but it had been a good enough tale to keep one's mind off a day's stale wind. Curses, Spaniards, Aztecs, treasure, but to hear that was what they were going after took Bootstrap by surprise for a moment. Though, he quickly knew that he should have known better than to be surprised by a venture of Jack Sparrow's.

Jack strutted down a few more steps as though he did not notice, but Bootstrap knew otherwise. Jack did it for dramatic measure before he turned around grinned the broader.

"You're for all rights and purposes, a crew member of the once thought to be unsalvageable _Black Pearl_ and you're surprised that her captain can find a place that cannot be found? I can find anything, mate!" he said strutting back up the gangplank to pull the older pirate down after him.

The rest of the crew hurried down too—all four other members, eager to hear the secret now that Jack had to offer. Where he picked them up few knew; though it had been said that all including Bootstrap had at one time paid him tribute for saving a whole crew with his clever daring against a Spanish ship. They're loyalty anyway seemed to warrant that rumor, for they seemed nearly dog-like in faithfulness, and these older scruffier pirates circled around like excited dogs all but barking to eagerly receive their treats (or where they were going to find them) as they descended the gangplank into Tortuga to get what Jack called "a real full-sized shipload."

Even the completely armless Larry pushed past Bootstrap with the brunt of his bare chest to hear what Jack found. The other three were Simbakka, Maximo, and Twigg.

Bootstrap steadied himself with annoyance, but soon hurried down at the rear to hear for himself.

"There's really a treasure there?" exclaimed Twigg.

"Have you seen it?" asked Maximo doubtfully, he was the oldest and shaggiest of the crew and happened to be the first mate.

"How'd you find out?" gasped Larry.

"Did you trick the information out of someone?" asked Simbakka.

"Now, now!" said Jack tutting, and he beamed smugly and knowingly. "It matters not the means. What matters is that, yes, there is a treasure, a hoard of Mexico's finest, and that can be guaranteed, and no island remains hidden from Captain Jack Sparrow."

"I've heard there's rivers of gold on that island!" cried Twig.

"But you only heard of it last month," said Maximo

"We'll be kings!" cried Simbakka.

"But isn't it cursed somehow?" asked Maximo with a quizzical brow.

"I don't believe in curses!" laughed Larry heartily. "And even if I did, there's no curse that would break _me_! If I managed to keep what's left of me eye and me two firm feet that's good enough for me."

"Good man!" said Jack. "Curses only lay hold on people who fear 'em in my experience."

"And the luck of Jack," teased Bootstrap with finally a smile that had been just a touch slow in coming, "should most likely cancel out anything if not."

The others cheered.

"Right so!" cried Jack. "You, Simbakka, guard my _Pearl_ , mate!"

"Aye, captain!" grinned the one so named under his floppy hat.

"The rest of you gather recruits!"

"Aye, aye, captain!" the crew shouted eagerly hurrying off, but Jack pulled Bootstrap aside just as he was on his way to follow the others.

"You're with me, William. We're getting some work done so we don't wind up with a shipload of… Larrys." He shook his head. "I'm aiming for a real crew."

"Aye, captain," said Bootstrap, always pleasantly surprised when Jack called him by his Christian name, and was even more pleased to know that Jack considered him a worthy member of a "real crew".

Just as they were going into town a rather squinty eyed pirate squinted more after rubbing his eyes and blinking up at Jack's ship as though that sleep in his eyes just wouldn't come out.

"Hoi! Ain't that the spittin' image of—"

"The _Black Pearl_?" Jack offered.

"Well, aye!" cried the man.

Jack grinned. "It _is_ , mate! Wanna join her crew? We're bound for Aztec treasure."

"What? Are you on the crew of the _Black Pearl_ what sank to the depths of Davy Jones Locker not less than a double score ago?"

Bootstrap smiled in that deep shady manner that introverts can only do. If he knew Jack's secret he never revealed it to anyone, but he often looked as though he did. He may have known about the compass, but whether or not he knew how the ship was pulled from the depths was anyone's guess.

"I'm not just _on_ the crew," retorted Jack. "I _make_ the crew. Captain Jack Sparrow, mate!"

"No really?!" demanded the man.

"Aye!" cried Jack.

"Who's that then?"

Jack's face fell.

"He's him," said Bootstrap cheerfully, "an impossible man just older than a score himself. The founder of lost treasures. The luckiest person alive."

"Him, really?" asked the man as though struggling to remember something that was not there to remember.

"Yes, _really_!" said Jack with a sniff, "and if you think your sorry, pasty, little sniveling face is worthy of my crew then say so now or forever hold your peace cuz I may just change my mind and look for beefier men, savvy?"

"Well, if that be the case, captain," said the man, "I'm all up to sign up!"

"Welcome aboard!" grinned Jack again. "Tell your friends! Your family! We set sail first thing tomorrow!"

"Aye, aye, captain!"

"I think you hardly need to think about a shipload of Larrys," said Bootstrap eyeing Jack with amusement as the man hurried off.

"Who said anything about a shipload of Larrys?" asked Jack quite surprised.

"You did," Bootstrap remarked.

"I did not!" Jack shook his head and remade his way to the inn.

"Hurry up, Bootstrap!" Jack called cheerfully, and Bootstrap did as bidden trotting up to his side faithfully as a hound. "No, there'll be no trouble getting a crew by the rising sun on that beautiful thing called the morrow! You just wait and see! We'll be _sending_ people away before the night's through!"


	2. The Pig and the Chicken

JMJ

TWO: THE PIG AND THE CHICKEN

However, once inside the bar it proved just a touch more difficult, for without the sight of the _Pearl_ to back him up, he was just a silly boy with an almost quaintly silly little crew. One could not see the ship from the windows, and in the dark of the evening the few who did step outside claimed that that ship could not be the _Black Pearl_ and laughed. It was discovered that Larry actually chased people from joining rather than being encouraging, and though Maximo and Twigg managed to scrounge some people up, Bootstrap began to think that they would at least have to wait one more day before setting sail and said so.

But Jack was not daunted yet it seemed and was still in pleasant spirits as he tutted Bootstrap's thought upon the subject. He was far more interested in their destination now than the crew so that at last Bootstrap asked, "So, how did you find it, Jack? It's what you want me to ask you. I know it is."

"Well, if you insist, mate!" shrugged Jack, and here he stoked the atmosphere, leaning over the table and folding his hands together as he set his eyes firmly on his listener. "It's not so much that no one can find it. It's more like no one can get to the place where one could search for it."

Bootstrap nodded for him to go on.

"I was aboard a ship with Cpt. Culrose or Culoss—"

"Culross?" offered Bootstrap.

"Yeah, that's the blighter. He's dead now, you know. Not far off the coast of the Isla de Muerta, actually."

"So he was looking for it?" asked Bootstrap.

"The _Daggered Tooth_ wasn't daggered enough to slip through Shipwreck Cay. Culross' shortsightedness lost himself and most of the crew, but the _Pearl_ …" here Jack paused extra atmospherically. "The _Pearl_ is not just the fastest. She's the best in all respects. So it wasn't just the notoriety the reason for it."

"We need it to actually get to the treasure, you mean?" said Bootstrap.

"Well, even with that there would be some trouble, but I, after finding the island on a dingy and finding the entrance to the cave of wonders, and seeing as I couldn't exactly bring out the treasure without a boat even if I wanted to try, I also found the way through the barrier to get to and from said island with the least likely chance of getting hung up, but before we go to the island we need to—"

" _I_ hear ye be lookin' for a crew!"

Both Jack and Bootstrap slowly looked up from their table to the sound of the commanding voice. It was the first of such voices to enquire into their business so boldly and confidently, and the bearing and face was certainly befitting of the voice. Not a doddering or infantile hair would be found on him. Even his broad hat, heavy coat and gleaming boots were more impressive than what most anyone else wore around him (except maybe Jack). His eyes bit like ice sharp as blades, and hard as stone, and the half smile on his firmly set jaw was enough to send the lily-livered back a few feet just at his approach.

Bootstrap, eyes widening and mouth opened ajar as he beheld him, wondered foggily, rather doddering in mind himself temporarily, how a man such as this would descend from his lofty heights to join a crew of Jack's. Even Jack looked a little surprised so that he did not speak before the stranger spoke again.

"I _be_ adressin' the captain of the _Black Pearl_ , be I not? Captain Jack Sparrow, is it?"

Jack grinned. "That's me! Rearin' to sign up, I take it. I warn you I only take the best!"

The stranger laughed slightly. "Oh, aye, like that armless slug with the partly missin' eye ye got back there singin' to mermaids and fallin' out of his chair more oft than lappin' his rum."

"I don't know who you're talkin' about, mate," said Jack. "That doesn't sound like anyone on _my_ crew."

"Ah!" said the stranger not hardly impressed and then said, "Mind if I sit down, captain?"

"Oh, not at all!" exclaimed Jack. "Bootstrap. Make him some room."

Blinking back to his senses and clamping his mouth shut, Bootstrap moved his chair over to allow the third that the newcomer dragged over, and the threesome sat together as any proper council in Tortuga.

#

" _Barbossa, right?"_

" _Huh?"_

 _At Ellis' sudden query Pintel blinked back as from a trance and leered at the boy with a clench that would have been tight had he possessed all his teeth._

" _The stranger," said Ellis. "That's Barbossa, I take it."_

" _No, no, not Barbossa… Oh, come off it! It's Barbossa!" snapped Pintel. "It don't take an idiot to figure that out!"_

 _Ellis smiled briefly and then shrugged._

" _I was just tryin' to create an atmosphere and you ruined it," Pintel growled low like a bear half awake from hibernation._

 _After flustering a moment he called for more rum._

 _Ellis then urged him to go on._

" _Fine, but don't ruin my atmosphere again," Pintel grumbled._

#

"So you are?" asked Jack squinting.

"Hector Barbossa, at yer service, captain," said the man almost graciously.

Jack grinned.

"Hector!" he chirped like the little bird he was. "Pleased to meet you! Welcome aboard!"

Barbossa closed his eyes briefly, noticeably annoyed, and probably already regretting one of the worst mistakes he ever did in front of Jack Sparrow.

"Or would you prefer 'Barbossa'?" asked Jack cheekily. "You really should go by it, you know. It's much more impressive sounding than 'Hector'. Don't you think, William?"

Bootstrap made no motion to reply before Barbossa took helm of the conversation again.

" _I_ be wantin' to know!" cut in Barbossa sharply.

"Yes?" asked Jack innocently.

"The particulars. I hear ye be bound for an island what cannot be found save those who know where it is, and either ye be a right fool boy who thinks to play games for a place ye cannot truly find or ye be a right fool to believe anyone will believe yer tale save other fools."

"Well, besides the fact that that's need to know classified and I don't think I fancy taking aboard a man who eavesdrops on conversations that are no business of his, and that 'fool' can mean so many things, you be wanting to know," Jack teased, "how I escaped a sinking ship, fought off vicious man-eating sharks, found the entrance, and escaped off the island through impossible fog in nothing but a dingy? Or are you wanting to know how we think we can get a hold of said treasure without the curse coming down on our heads."

Barbossa laughed. "Curse."

"Yes, you know, a haunting evil curse," chirped Jack.

"Aye, they usually are."

"Blood money paid to Cortez to stop the bloodshed of the Aztecs, but he still wouldn't heed. Sounds an awful lot like what Pissarro did to the Mayans, actually," said Jack, "'till the Aztec gods cursed the gold so that for anyone who touches one piece of it he will have a living death. Neither truly among the living nor truly among the dead for eternity in that space between dying followed by darkness. A cloud of a storm that never breaks. Perhaps you fear that?"

"No more than you, I assure you," said Barbossa. "For either of us to still believe in ghost tales beyond the years of babes… We're both thinking men, Captain Sparrow, and ye just be playin'. Do you accept me aboard yer ship, for ye won't be getting too many more as me by the next sun."

"I'll have you know that we're doing just fine recruiting people," said Jack. "Hardly left the dock before we had three or four blighters show up to come aboard the _Black Pearl_ under the captain that reclaimed her, eh?"

"Well, if its quantity over quality ye be wantin'."

"I don't think he wants to come, Jack," said Bootstrap quietly, "I think he just wants to make a fool of ya."

"Oh, no, ye take me all wrong, Master Bootstrap. I don't think a young man like Captain Sparrow would dare to trick a shipload of pirates if he didn't know where it be hid," Barbossa said with a grin. "A lost treasure be no joking matter even 'round fools."

"There, I knew it was just playful banter," said Jack.

"No," said Barbossa sharply. "There be nothin' playful about it. See. Ye won't have a full crew by the morrow, will ye? Not a very good one from what I learned from yer sailors Maximo and Twigg."

"And what do you hope to gain out of joining what you think is a shipload of fools?" asked Jack.

Bootstrap nodded rigorously, for that had been on his mind since the conversation began.

"That's what I'm here to find out," said Barbossa, "but as I say, I know yer no fool, Captain. Anyone who can bring the _Black Pearl_ back from the darkest legends can overcome the rest, and to be aboard such a ship under such a captain, if I be not deceived in some manner, would be worth it, especially with the gold waiting at the end of it."

"True," Jack admitted.

"But the particulars?" Barbossa pressed.

"Classified," smiled Jack. "First we set sail for Mexico to get the double keyed idols that open the door, but beyond that is not discussed."

"Oh, so it's to be a double venture, is it?"

"Treasure this lost to legend usually takes work," said Jack, "but if you're—"

"Ye'd find my patience surprisin', Captain Sparrow," Barbossa assured him. "Where in Mexico be these keys?"

"When we get there," said Jack. "you'll know where they are."

"Then," said Barbossa after a pause, "I'll ask the final time. Am I accepted or not, and it so if I find you some descent crew members…"

"Say no more," said Jack. "You're accepted, but as for a descent crew, if you can find more good men than I can by tomorrow I'll make you bu'son on my ship. How's that sound?"

"We have an accord, Captain Jack Sparrow."

#

Away from the lighter breeze than usual out by the docks, in the inner streets away from the inns and taverns, the night was still save some echoes of laughter in the distance and a gunshot further away than that. There was a light coming from a dingy stone shack down the road a ways, but otherwise the only living things that were around were in a pair of cages waiting for their wagon.

They seemed to be the only living things for only a short time; however, for the rustling behind a low stone wall was noisy enough to have aroused anyone to have heard it.

Two heads then poked up over the wall, first one and then another.

"Should we get the chicken or the pig?" asked Pintel shifting his vision greedily from one animal to the other.

After pulling a twig from his hair, Ragetti mused thoughtfully as he eyed the animals back and forth a couple times himself. His false eye not always quite in sync with the true one.

" _Hmm_ ," he said. "I say both."

Pintel nodded. "Good thinkin'." Then he turned to Ragetti shiftily as he said, "You have to carry the pig."

A broad grin formed on Ragetti's face. "All right then, but then I get to eat the pig."

"What?" demanded Pintel, glowering. "No, then I get to carry the pig."

But Ragetti already swung his leg over the wall.

"Too late, mate," he said, "we already made the decision. You're gettin' the chicken and I'm gettin' the pig."

In a sudden violent motion, Pintel wrenched Ragetti off the wall and pulled him by the collar towards his face.

" _I'm_ gettin' the _pig_!" he snarled.

 _BANG_!

The pair froze instantly to the core as the animals on the other side of the wall cried out in fright. At first Pintel and Ragetti were afraid that they had been discovered, but as they turned quickly they beheld the same confident form that Jack and Bootstrap had just taken leave of.

"Captain Barbossa!" they both said in reverent awe.

"Good evening, Messurs Pig and Chicken. Gather up the usual men. We set sail on the morn aboard the _Black Pearl_. And be sure to tell them all to greet our captain cordially on yer best behavior. Captain Jack Sparrow."

"Aye, aye, captain!" grinned the faithful followers, but after a second or so they looked at each other in confusion.

"Uh, which ship's that, captain?" asked Pintel.

"And why aren't you the captain, captain?" asked Ragetti.

"It's the only ship with black sails as has ever been made or will," said Barbossa, but he did not reply about the other captain, except to say, "yer ne'er to call me captain in his presence unless I say otherwise."

The atmosphere that he swept after him as he turned to leave was the best that evening leaving Pintel and Ragetti still in awe.

After a moment Ragetti turned to Pintel and shrugged.

"That must be why it's called the _Black Pearl_."

Pintel frowned.

"I still get the pig, though," Ragetti added.

"You don't get neither!" snapped Pintel pushing Ragetti away from the wall and out onto the road. "We gotta get the crew together! Then eat!"


	3. Death in the Hand

JMJ

THREE: DEATH IN THE HAND

"How do ye take to the recruits, captain?" asked Barbossa with a good old fashioned pirate sneer.

Jack put a hand to his chin thoughtfully; though his original crew stared in awe and almost dismay at the pirates behind Barbossa. Not that they had not found a descent number of men themselves, but they were nothing compared to the quality of cutthroats, scallywags, and just fearfully large men on Barbossa's side. From the massive bull of a man that seemed too larger than life to need a name to the creepy hairy little Scratch they more than outdid Dog Ear and Mallot on their side. The toughest looking man on their side was probably Hawksmoor, and the cutest ones on Barbossa's side were Pintel and Ragetti. Even they, amidst the rest of Barbossa's recruits, at least looked deranged enough to fit the rest as they beamed proudly with daggered yellowed teeth to one side of Barbossa.

Yet true to their word Pintel and Ragetti bowed before their new captain like gentlemen if only gentlemen of fortune.

"Ready to set sail, Captain Jack Sparrow!" announced Ragetti.

"Rediscoverer of the _Black Pearl_ , Captain Jack Sparrow!" added Pintel.

"Ragetti and Pintel, here to serve you, Captain Jack Sparrow!" exclaimed Ragetti pointing himself out and his partner in crime.

"Well, that's a given, I'd think if you're here," said Jack eyeing Ragetti and Pintel briefly and uninterested before turning to the bigger and deadlier recruits. "It's a tough decision," he then said to Barbossa, "but I have to say, Hector, you haven't done half bad. I think you might have maybe one or two more good men then my crew found. Maybe. If I don't count Jelly Legs and Larry."

He turned to Bootstrap.

"Where is Larry anyway?" he muttered under his breath just loud enough for Bootstrap to hear.

"Still back at the tavern, captain."

" _Hmph_ ," said Jack, and then he said with a smile to Barbossa, "Congratulations! You're now bo'sun of the _Black Pearl_. How d'ye feel?"

"Well, thank ye kindly, captain," said Barbossa.

"I thought _I_ was the bo'sun!" exclaimed Simbakka suddenly.

"Sorry, Hector here found more men then you did," said Jack.

"But I didn't even get a chance!" complained Simbakka. "I was with the _Pearl_!"

"Take that up with Hector," Jack shrugged.

Then climbing up onto to the gangplank a few feet he then addressed his united crew.

"My dear gentlemen!" he said. "I congratulate you all on being lucky enough to sail the finest craft that was ever built by the hands of men. You will go down in history as the crew of Captain Jack Sparrow, I assure you! So! C'mon, don't just stand there, you scallywags, let's a move on!"

The crew roared with approval.

#

" _But Barbossa was trickin' 'im all along."_

 _Ellis blinked at the storyteller and shook his head. "Yeah, I gathered that much."_

" _You looked confused so I was tellin' ya ahead of time," said Pintel._

" _No, it wasn't that, I was just wondering why Jack didn't suspect something if he was such a great pirate and all. You'd think he'd know something was amiss."_

" _Maybe he did suspect somethin'," shrugged Pintel. "Maybe he didn't. No one can guess the mind of the likes of him. But if he did, he misjudged the ruthlessness of Barbossa anyway. Thought he could handle him. Or maybe he wasn't sure either way and that's why he gave him a hard time. To test him, maybe, but I doubt it. Not with him givin' away bearings an' all. You don't do that for someone you don't trust. Everyone starts off somewheres. I don't think anyone ever did trick Jack Sparrow b'fore. He was young enough then, and wherever he was b'fore that he seemed as though nothin' ever went wrong for 'im till Captain Barbossa."_

" _Did he betray him before they even got to Mexico."_

" _Oh, there was New Spain a'right," said Pintel. "I should know. I was there. It was no picnic I can tell ya."_

#

They set sail with a friendly wind and a smiling sun. There were no troubles to speak of on their way to Mexico, but when they arrived it was obvious that Barbossa was the one suspicious.

"Now how is that ye know about the location of these idol keys, captain?" Barbossa demanded with a wry sort of look.

Jack smiled equally as wry as he climbed upon the back of one of the horses they had swiped.

With them were Bootstrap Bill, Pintel, Ragetti, and a prickly little man called Espino or Spino who happened to be Spanish enough to speak with the Mexicans if need be. Each had a horse of his own to ride even if Ragetti was having a little trouble with his.

Once having situated himself, Jack fiddled with his compass idly, making Barbossa wait impatiently for his answer. Then once having slipped it just as idly back into his coat he chirped in his usual spirit, "Oh, I know well enough for you where the double keys are."

Barbossa snorted and his smiled turned rather dark.

"Have I ever steered you wrong before, Hector?" asked Jack.

"Ye haven't had the chance to try," Barbossa reminded him.

"Stop messin' around, will ya!" Pintel growled behind them.

"I can't, the stupid beast keeps tryin' to go where I don't want it to!" Ragetti complained. "I never ridden a horse this stupid b'fore! — _Ak_! Me eye!"

"You mean you never ridden a horse before," laughed Espino as Ragetti tried to climb off of his horse.

"Don't let 'im step on it!" cried Ragetti.

Awkwardly, he fell off the rest of the way landing with a moan on the ground, and the horse snorted. He was not much hurt as he scrabbled upright enough to grab the reigns of his horse which seemed much more content now that no one sat upon him. Then he stooped down to the sandy weeds to find the wooden eye.

Bootstrap shook his head.

Both captain and bo'sun glanced at the display of the unhappy horse and more unhappy rider, and then back at each other just as Ragetti reclaimed his prize.

"Found it!"

"Where then?" asked Barbossa lightly.

Jack looked past Ragetti scrambling back onto his horse, and after a brief pause he said pointing past him, "In a sort of that-ish direction."

"Oh, really?"

Jack straightened. "Yes. If you don't like it you can go back to the ship. I'm sure we'll manage without you. Beside, as bo'sun you'd be better off there, you know, and I should have had Maximo here instead. He's the first mate, after all."

Barbossa studied Jack a moment.

"Stupid beast!" cried Ragetti again as he managed to get into position on his horse again.

Then Barbossa took up his pistol and shot it near the feet of Ragetti's horse. With a cry from both horse and rider, the pair of them sped off in the "that-ish" direction Jack had pointed to.

"We ride!" growled Barbossa.

At once the others set off behind the shrieking Ragetti across the empty barren landscape…

A few days inland they reached their destination too according to Jack, dismounting his horse and hurrying to a cluster of rocks. The others dismounted and followed Jack's example all huddling around him (except Barbossa who was too distinguished to huddle) to follow Jack's finger down into the canyon.

Everyone's faces fell including Jack's as he followed his own finger.

" _Son_ e _n todos sitios_ ," breathed Espino.

"Oh! Soldiers!" Jack chirped.

They were not many fortunately, but it was not the men they were looking at so much as the fort. The city beyond looked flourishing and relatively welcoming, especially when compared to the fort. They had passed a few other towns without military presence at all. It was just their luck that the keys were here. Bad, bad luck.

"But why would a bunch of soldiers be gaurdin' the keys?" demanded Pintel. "It's not as if they were expectin' us."

"Unhappy coincidence?" offered Bootstrap.

"Maybe they're worth a lot in themselves," said Ragetti.

Barbossa eyed Jack suspiciously and said nothing.

"Please tell me that we're just passing through the base and not going into it," whispered Bootstrap.

"Oh, we're not going into it," said Jack with a determined nod out across the valley before turning to Bootstrap with a sniff. "Perish the thought! What are you insane? Sometimes I wonder about you people. If my bearings are correct—and they always are, by the way—" (Here he eyed Barbossa knowingly, and Barbossa's leer tightened) "—then the keys are in that house, right there."

"The one right next to the fort?" whined Ragetti.

"You have got to be kiddin' me," growled Pintel.

"But they aren't on the lookout for us, now are they, Master Pintel?" sniffed Barbossa.

"Exactly," said Jack beaming. "So! You and you're little one-eyed beasty friend can go with our Spanish expert to sell the man some horses."

"Come again, Captain?" asked Espino.

Barbossa sneered. "Ye're to be the diversion."

"Right," said Jack. "Bootstrap!"

"Aye, captain?" said Bootstrap looking as uncertain as the rest.

"You'll be lookout," said Jack. "Meanwhile, the bo'sun and I will be slipping into the house and taking the keys. One for each us. They're at least a foot high each. Can't be hard to find. Probably skull-like and dead-looking. Witchywolves likes that sort of thing."

Pintel winced. "Witchy- _who_?"

"It's what the original Spaniards who found the human sacrifices called one of the Aztec gods who wore human hearts around his neck," muttered Ragetti.

"Oh," mused Pintel and then turned to Ragetti with a raised brow. "Real human hearts?"

Ragetti nodded promptly.

"Would that be your father's master again?"

"Peepin' through keyholes learns you all you need to know," said Ragetti holding his head high until he added, "except to know how to read. He lived in a house as big that one though, the professor did."

It was a magnificent casa, to be sure.

"And I suppose ye know the 'bearings' of which room they be in too," mocked Barbossa ignoring his faithful followers.

"In a way," retorted Jack. "Yes." He cleared his throat. "Right then. Everyone knows their lines. Let's get started."

"If I might be so bold, captain, this plan seems to be a bit weak in the foundations," said Barbossa, "assumin', they be in the house atall."

"These plans always work for Jack," said Bootstrap with a shrug.

"Captain Jack Sparrow," reminded Jack with a grin.

Barbossa frowned the harder, but the plan commenced all the same. It was fortune on their side that the master of the house was not inside at the moment. It did not take much effort for the horse traders to cause a distraction for the butler at the door. Then with Bootstrap watching their backs as nonchalantly as he could appear behind a fence, Barbossa and Jack slipped through an open window to the study in the house.

"Perfect," whispered Jack cheerily as he went about the room thickly populated with an assortment of museum quality artifacts and symbols of military prowess. "This is the most likely spot to check."

"Yer luck won't hold out forever, Jack," muttered Barbossa.

"Hmm, sorry, what was that?" asked Jack looking down from his musing over a wall of books and trinkets. "Help me look, Hector. That's why we're both here."

He slipped a tiny silver cup with an inlay of pin tipped sapphires into his coat.

Barbossa rolled his eyes and glanced out the window shielded by a thin wisp of curtain which made it easy enough to see out but difficult for someone on the other side to look in. No one was near the office, and although he could not see anything of the diversion but a horse's tail flicking, he could hear the trio talking loudly to the annoyed butler at the door. Then leaning down he pulled open a cupboard in the desk.

Jack turned around from a corner where he had slipped away a few other tiny trinkets of worth, and a wild shriek released right in Jack's face. Jack with a small cry stumbled back a few paces and knocked into a small stand that he just barely stood upright again before he breathed a sigh of relief.

Luckily there had been bars in between him and the shrieking creature, and luckily the shrieking had not come from any man. Inside what both Barbossa and Jack had assumed to be a giant birdcage in the dark room, was in reality holding a very agitated little capuchin monkey. As attractive as one could look, but still a frightfully annoying little bugger, it decided to shriek again.

Barbossa and Jack looked at monkey still making noises after that but of the quieter sort. Then they looked at each other before looking out the front window again. From the open side window meanwhile Bootstrap had hurried up, and just as the pair of searchers felt it safe to continue their search, he whispered, "Jack? Is everything all—?"

"Yes, yes, everything's fine," Jack muttered eyes elsewhere, and he chewed a nail absently, "return to your post, man."

"Aye, aye, captain," muttered Bootstrap in return as he reluctantly left the window.

Suddenly Jack was stopped again when he head an earthen clank on the desktop. He turned to the mocking smile of Barbossa as he set the second of a pair of small gruesome looking pair of stone pagan deities, the Humming Bird Wizard and the Lord of Darkness. They stood about a foot high each with gold trim and strangely shaped metal spokes beneath their bases so that they could never sit upright unless pushed down into the proper openings.

"Would these be fittin' into yer description, captain?" asked Barbossa.

Jack cocked his head thoughtfully. "I suppose they'll do," he said. "Good work, bo'sun Barbossa, I'll have to give you a promotion."

"Really?" mocked Barbossa. "Wouldn't that make me first mate? Maximo wouldn't appreciate that, I doubt it very much."

"Oh," said Jack with a shrug. "He'll get over it."

" _Captain_!" hissed a familiar voice from the window.

Jack turned after taking the Humming Bird Wizard from Barbossa's hand.

"Here take this will you?" said Jack handing it to Bootstrap waiting for them just outside. He took the other from Barbossa now just behind him and handed the Lord of Darkness to Bootstrap too. "There's a couple more things I want before we leave here."

But Bootstrap hardly looked at the keys as he said anxiously, "but, captain, the butler's going inside. Says he won't stand any more foreign door to door salesmen."

"Well, then get out of the way, ye slug, and let us through!" snarled Barbossa.

Bootstrap scurried out of the way and Jack threw a leg out first. As Bootstrap was attempting to help him out on the other side while still holding the keys, the monkey let out another savage shriek and the door flung open. The shriek that followed, which was a very human shriek from a maid, was enough to alert their presence for miles around.

" _Mph_!" squeaked Jack and waved Bootstrap away again. "Move!"

" _Bandidos_! _Bandidos_!" the woman shrieked again as Jack fell onto the ground in a plume of dust on the other side.

Barbossa was out seconds behind him just after the woman in a panic to run back out of the room knocked over the birdcage with monkey, which apparently was enough to break its lock. Not that either Barbossa or Jack noticed at the time, but monkey made the break for it too not long after the trio hurried out the back not knowing what had happened to the other three in the front of the house. But there certainly was a cry of horses and cries in Spanish coming from the direction of the fort.

"And we're not bandits, we're pirates!" called Jack just below the din now to be heard, but even still Barbossa shot him a quick leer.


	4. Fiesta Crashing

JMJ

FOUR: FIESTA CRASHING

In the end it did not matter whether Jack shouted or not. Somehow, they lost Bootstrap for a time, but they did find a few Spaniards to take his place. Fully prepared with rifles and prowess, the soldiers soon rounded up both Jack and Barbossa and caught them after cornering them in a city dead end that the outsiders had not been prepared for. Jack and Barbossa found Bootstrap and the rest of the party soon enough, however in the cells of the city jail.

Espino translated for them that though they were going to have a trial, they were expected to be hanged for breaking into the old general's office, and for stealing horses and killing the original owners on top of that. Also one of the original owners had happened to be related to the general apparently.

"Ooo!" said Jack.

"So much for yer luck," growled Barbossa. "Now you've gotten us hanged."

"Not yet," Jack said with a smile after the soldier left the prisoners to themselves. "We're not hanging with ropes around our necks at the moment now are we? There's still plenty of time."

"Time f'r what, might I ask?" Barbossa demanded.

"Time to contemplate our deaths," suggested Ragetti a couple cells down with the rest of the party, "and say our prayers?"

"Better," said Jack. "Time to keep our heads long enough to figure out how to save our necks. It's not the first time I've been in this position."

"Oh, that's encouragin'," sneered Barbossa.

"About four times, actually," said Jack. "Isn't that right, Bootstrap?"

"Five, I thought. Unless you don't want to count that one in the Cape of Good Hope you told me about," said Bootstrap.

"This time it counts," said Jack.

"And yer point with this is?" asked Barbossa.

Jack turned to Barbossa again and stepped up to his face so barely inches were between them, and Barbossa leaned his head back just a touch while keeping solid as the stone walls around them as the sinewy branch swayed about him.

"Is it enough to say that I've been caught six times and I've got the worse luck of any pirate?" asked Jack. "Or would it be better to put it that I was caught and got _away_ six times?"

There was a short but violent pause in which both men stared hard into each other's eyes, sizing them up as though those eyes were about to do battle with one another while the bodies remained still.

"Six?" muttered Barbossa.

He raised his brows and waited patiently for Jack to step back from him of his own accord.

"Well, give or take Cape of Good Hope," shrugged Jack turning to the bars. Then he said to Bootstrap, "You still got those keys?"

"You got the keys?" gasped Pintel in surprise.

"Well, he means the keys to Isla de Meurta, I'm sure," muttered Ragetti.

"They won't help us out!" complained Espino.

"Of course I don't have them anymore, captain," said Bootstrap ignoring his cell mates.

"But do you know where they are?" Jack pressed knowingly.

"Aye," said Bootstrap. "They're hid in the city. Before I was caught."

"Good man, William Turner," said Jack with a grin. "I can always count on you. I can't make you first mate, cuz I already promised it to Hector here, but I'll be sure to make you bo'sun next time we see the _Pearl_."

"If we ever see the _Pearl_ again," sighed Pintel.

Jack straightened himself and smiled importantly. "Now, gentlemen," he said. "Don't let these walls cage your minds. We will see those black sails again, mates, because there's one thing that those Spaniards don't know about. Our advantage."

"Which is?" demanded Barbossa.

"I'm Captain Jack Sparrow? And don't any of you forget it!"

Then smiling at Barbossa who looked less comforted rather than more, Jack said with a casual wave of his hand, "You trust your captain don't you, Hector? You'll have a rich share in the treasure before you know it. I can guarantee you that. Equal shares as first mate, eh? There won't be any Spanish noose breaking your neck any time soon, mate."

#

Even had he trusted Jack in the cell, which he had not for a moment, anyone would have doubted him the moment he had the noose around his neck. And although fear may have been among the feelings Barbossa had then, anger was by far the dominant one. His wide stare could have shriveled the cavalry to dust, save that he was not staring at anyone but Jack. It was not just that he was dying. Barbossa even then was not one to shiver in the face of death, but to end his life in such a humiliating fashion as to be hanged because of the idiocy of some insane urchin that the fates laughed about when they decided to let him have the _Black Pearl_. Barbossa felt they must be laughing still at the utter irony of his trying to dupe the boy but ending up being duped himself without the boy even meaning to dupe him.

Now here he was about to be hanged before Jack Sparrow. They had only three official nooses, apparently. So there was one for him, one for Pintel, and one for Espino. Then the other three would have their turn.

Espino all the while was yelling in Spanish something about being innocent and having nothing to do with the other pirates around him who had kidnapped him and forced him into their service against his will, but no one was listening to him. Pintel just appeared to be in a state of shock in between the silent fury of Barbossa and the wild ranting of Espino, and he stared out ahead of himself with eyes like saucers at nothing at all.

"I never thought we would separate like this," sobbed Ragetti standing next to Bootstrap Bill against a tall, tight wooden fence. "He was like a brother, he was, old Pintel. Always lookin' out for me, you might say. The only older brother I ever had, and now I have to watch 'im hang like some filthy lowlife pirate."

"Well," said Bootstrap somewhat kindly; they were just about to die after all, "you can at least be comforted in the fact that the separation won't be a long one."

"On the contrary, if he actually gets hanged," chirped Jack with a careless shrug, "he could be dangling there for hours before he actually dies and they get to us!"

Ragetti's eyes widened with dismay whether for himself or his shipmate or both, and he gulped visibly. Also visible was the twitch beneath the wooden eye as though it pained him, and he rubbed it with his shackled hands.

"Yes, just like that," said Jack, "only that wooden eyeball will probably roll out all over the stones, and trip up the horses."

" _Silencio_!" barked a guard.

Jack only smiled and nodded while his bewildered older companions stared and wondered how mad their captain truly was in thinking they could escape this unless he had just been driven mad by the hopelessness of the situation.

But when the guards were no longer watching Jack directly, and the all attention was drawn to the platform stage of the ones about to be hanged it suddenly happened that Jack rammed purposely into Ragetti so that he lost his balance. They were not chained together so he fell at once onto the ground with a yelp. As soon as he landed with a rough bump onto the cobbled square, he let out a second yelp as he cried out, "Me eye!"

And just as Jack had said, though Ragetti was not yet in the noose, the wooden eye bounced along the stones out of Ragetti's reach.

Then while everyone's attention was briefly drawn to the noisy scene with Ragetti, Jack stood up to the guard nearest the post fence. In a split second the guard was on his guard, but not for what Jack actually did.

"I like your hat," he said rather abruptly as the rifle was pointed into his chest.

Whether the guard understood him or not mattered little, but the tone confused the guard if only a touch, and that was just enough to give Jack the chance to jump as hard as he could onto the man's boots. Naturally, the guard was not hurt, but he staggered enough for Jack even shackled to get a hold of the rifle after it fired harmlessly upward. Instantly the guards were after him, but Jack did not shoot anyone. He shot instead the bolt to the tall post fence behind them, and a roar erupted from inside it.

Thunder boomed, and hooves and horns charged through the now unbolted gate. Most everyone, especially the spectators, forgot all about the hanging, and did all they could to leap away to stop themselves from being sucked into an out of season running with the bulls. Most of the soldiers were not quite so frantic, but they were still plenty distracted long enough for Jack to slip away the shackle keys to free himself and snatch a sword and pistol.

Though as he turned to toss the keys to Bootstrap, he was a little startled himself to see that one particular bull had decided to rampage the platform. Pintel and Barbossa collapsed with the damaged stands, but befitting for Espino he somehow ended on top of the bull with rope still around his neck and a small chunk of wood dangling behind. In its rage the bull kicked and bunted as Espino wailed and held on only with having his shackles around one of the horns.

Pintel lifted his head and moaned painfully, but before he could rejoice in his escape or realize fully what had happened in general, the bull spun his way.

" _Ack_!" he cried, and he barely had time to squeeze his eyes shut.

Pain wracked his arms from the wrists outward, and for a spit second he thought for sure his hands had been clomped off, but as he opened his eyes again, he saw to his amazement that the pain had only been caused by the shackles being split in the middle where the bull had stepped on them. With disbelief in his relief he fell face-first again into the pile of rubble.

"Interesting, but effective," muttered Jack, but he was forced into his own situation then when a Spaniard came at him with a sword…

Bootstrap had caught the keys that Jack had thrown and dove into a corner behind a shed away from the din as well as forgetting all about Ragetti still scampering after his wooden eye like a miserable dog not wanting to give up his game of fetch though the whole world was coming to an end. After glancing around the corner to see that Jack was still doing alright in his climbing up the side of a collapsing balcony away from a the Spaniard, Bootstrap then made good his time with the keys. Yet in the middle of undoing his shackles, he heard a strange but familiar shrieking sound above him. He gasped to see the escaped monkey leaping down like a ghost returned for vengeance. Bootstrap could not respond quick enough to keep the monkey from snatching the keys away.

"No!" Bootstrap cried. "No, mangy animal! Come back!"

But the monkey had no intention of doing so. What he had originally intended to do with it, none could say, but the only witness to the scene was Barbossa. Once he had recovered from his rather painful fall from the platform, rope and all, Barbossa had lost no time in leaving the war zone of three: bulls, Spaniards, and escaped pirates. Having already cut the noose from his neck by now with a fruit knife from an abandoned cart a street down, he now snatched up one of those pieces of fruit and with mad determination and the knife in his belt just in case (their original weapons had naturally been confiscated long before) he made for the monkey.

Bootstrap came to meet him after bumping into a barrel and scrambling upright just in time to keep from falling on his face.

Barbossa hardly gave him a glance as he stood boldly under the roof where the monkey dangled the keys tauntingly. Without a show of anger or frustration, which no doubt the monkey wanted, Barbossa smiled wryly and offered the monkey the savory treat instead. He spoke not like a desperate man but as a master in the way he always spoke even if a touch gentler than normal.

The monkey took his time to dwell in thought about it, but Barbossa remained patient enough until the creature came close and quickly snatched the fruit away from Barbossa while dropping the keys at his feet.

"There," said Barbossa snatching up the keys and unlocking his shackles.

Bootstrap watched the monkey briefly eating away at his citrus snack quite happily, and he knew that he would have never thought of the trade. Then Barbossa shoved the keys at him.

"Now!" said Barbossa quite severely and still just as masterly as over the monkey. "Where be _our_ keys, Master Turner?"

"Well, we should wait for Jack first," Bootstrap insisted.

"Jack's occupied at the moment, and we best not be standin' here idle if indeed he ever comes back from that sword fight. He's only one man against a Spanish troop whether he be Captain Jack Sparrow or no. Ye know the code, I've no doubt, and his pater be master of the code, and it is the way it should be with him, especially."

Bootstrap hesitated a moment, eyes faltering from the powerful gaze, and he shuffled his feet.

Then he said, "What about the others? We can't be the only ones. And I'm sure Jack will make it out of that fight. He usually does regardless of odds. I mean, I know you're not happy with him right now, but—"

"Be that as it may," said Barbossa. "We should find them in the meanwhile, don't you agree?"

Again Bootstrap hesitated and then nodded. "Aye."

Whether or not the pair of them would have gone to get the idol keys without Jack, Barbossa would have soon enough remembered that he still needed Jack to find out the location of the island despite his wrath against him. However, they were both saved from further trouble or debate when suddenly they heard the thundering hooves coming their way, and it took seconds later to see them in their storm of dust from the streets. So occupied were Barbossa and Bootstrap with getting quickly up into a narrow doorway to evade the onslaught, that they neither one of them noticed that Jack was just shoving his Spanish pursuer off of a bull, and he himself leapt for a flagpole. He missed and only grabbed the flag instead. The yelp he gave finally alerted the pair to his presence just as the last bull roared past.

They leaned out from the doorway and Jack landed rather deftly from the ripping flag considering the circumstances. At least after a stagger, he managed to appear Byronically heroic as he posed himself right afterwards.

"Seven!" declared Jack importantly. "That's seven times escaped. I told you, you ought to trust your captain, but neither of you believed in me, did you?"

"Well, I tried, Jack," Bootstrap insisted, "but you must admit that it was a really close—"

Barbossa rolled his eyes and interrupted, "Be that as it may! We still have yet to step foot on the _Black Pearl_ and truly be called free men. They'll now be huntin' for us at our tails like hell hounds all the way back and likely out to sea. We have no time to waste, and ye still have somethin' yet to prove aside from luck and madness."

"Luck and madness?" said Jack as though wounded. "That's what you call my skill and foresight? I had an eye on that bull gate from the moment we entered the square."

But Barbossa did not want to argue the point that that was only after they had entered the square; though he certainly could have.

Instead he pressed, "Master Turner, the keys to Isla de Meurta!" He turned again to Bootstrap. "Show us the way, isn't that right? Captain?"

"In time I'll learn to forgive you, I'm sure," said Jack, strutting past, and then he said the Bootstrap, "Right then, William. What say you about finding those keys?"

"Aye, aye, this way, captain," said Bootstrap motioning them into the direction of their destination.

The monkey suddenly screamed as in agreement from where he still lingered on the roofs above them.

"What?" demanded Jack. "It escaped too?"

"And stole the keys for a while too," muttered Bootstrap.

But it was not crying in agreement, it was crying in warning of newcomers, and these newcomers stumbled loudly, panting and clanking metal at their sides as they just managed to keep themselves from falling. They collapsed into each other and against the wall.

"Don't worry, I found me eye, captain!" gasped Ragetti, the one pressed closest to the wall, and he held out the wooden bauble for the captain to see; though with his wrists still shackled, he seemed to accidently be showing it to Barbossa rather than to Jack.

Barbossa snorted with disapproval.

"An' better than that, captain!" exclaimed Pintel.

He shoved Espino off his back and let the weapons drop before Jack's feet. Then Espino did the same before Ragetti who first had to shove his wooden eye into his head.

"It was me, captain!" exclaimed Espino proudly. "I found the custom's house where they was stored! All by myself!"

"With a little help from the bull, ain't it right, Pintel?" laughed Ragetti after Bootstrap handed him the shackle keys.

Pintel laughed with a snort and a friendly jab of his elbow into Ragetti's arm. "He couldn'ta missed it unless he'd been knocked unconscious flying through the window like that."

"Lucky he didn't break his neck," added Ragetti with a final giggle.

Once Ragetti was free, Espino snatched the shackle keys away from him roughly, but Ragetti was still grinning.

"Good work, gentlemen!" Jack said with head held high. "Now, Bootstrap!"

"The idol keys," nodded Bootstrap.

* * *

 **NOTE: Next time will be the "three days out to sea"**


	5. The Third Day Out to Sea

JMJ

FIVE: THE THIRD DAY OUT TO SEA

" _Just as Barbossa foretold," said Pintel with passionate intensity, "the Spanish were after us. It took far longer to get to shore than to leave it. Even b'sides not havin' horses no more we had to dart in and out of every corner like a buncha scared fish, for we was more than outnumbered and Jack wanted to avoid a fight at all costs as was his usual way. By the time we reached the_ Pearl _, the Spanish were right behind us, and after explainin' to the crew the changes an' all with Barbossa bein' the new first mate and Bootstrap the bo'sun and this not sittin' too well with Maximo, Jack started the_ Pearl _out to sea as fast as she could go."_

" _Well, the_ Black Pearl _must've been the faster," said Ellis. "I always heard she was the fastest."_

" _Right enough, she could, but the crew were none too eager to go divin' headfirst into a storm, as it were."_

" _Including you," said Ellis._

"' _Course includin' me!" snapped Pintel. "Even that stinkin' monkey didn't want to go into that storm! (Don't know how it ended up with us exactly but it was there by that time sidin' a'ready with Barbossa who'd fed 'im the orange or whatever). I was all for Barbossa's idea that we fight the Spanish ship. It was only one, and he felt sure that besides bein' the faster, the_ Pearl _in this case was also the stronger, but Captain Jack Sparrow wouldn't have none of that. If the_ Pearl _were that stronger, she could handle the gales. The storm was one of the worse I sailed through then. Course that was then. I seen far worse now. We lost a few men, at any rate, and some provisions, but the Spanish were at least no fools to follow us."_

" _So it turned out alright for the most part for_ you _?" Ellis asked._

 _There was a thoughtful pause that crossed Pintel then, a faraway look deeper than some he had already given, and after looking up at the ceiling and blinking slowly, a smile crept over his face. It was not a very pleasant one either even before it curled into a sneering nearly toothless grin from ear to ear._

" _Better than Barbossa could've hoped," he said. "His patience was paid off. Seemed at the time Jack Sparrow wasn't the only one with luck, after all."_

" _What do you mean?"_

" _Well, with the planned mutiny, there were still Jack's men to deal with," said Pintel. "Aye, Barbossa's men were more and stronger, but there might have been a struggle nonetheless. Here Barbossa had full advantage. Havin' a full day to recover after two days of storm, the crew weren't none too happy. Weren't too happy at all. Ripe for the plunder, you might call it, including Jack's loyal subjects…except maybe ol' Bootstrap Bill…"_

#

There had been little time to talk to Jack during the chaos of the storm for anybody, and for a man like Bootstrap Bill it was easy to wait too long. He had had a disliking for Barbossa since the day he met him, rubbing off on him the wrong way after the manner of those with the melancholic temperament. At first it had been more a question of personality rather than true distrust even if Bootstrap did often wonder why Barbossa had decided to tag along on a venture with a unknown boyish captain when he could no doubt captain his own ship easily enough, perhaps easier than Jack. Yet it had slowly brewed in his mind that Barbossa was truly up to no good and it was more the men he hired than Barbossa himself that began to make him uncomfortable. This was all before they arrived at Mexico, but ever since Barbossa had become first mate it had gotten worse than before.

Barbossa men obviously respected him. Pintel and Ragetti all but called him captain, as loyal to him as the monkey was, it seemed. They might have been two more monkeys. At least they seemed more loyal to Barbossa than to Jack, and after the storm he had a growing feeling that Jack should be very wary of Barbossa. He did not see why Jack did not.

Unless he did and considered it all a game. It was difficult to tell with Jack. It was always difficult to tell with Jack. He was more unpredictable than his father had been as captain.

So finally by the afternoon of the third day, Bootstrap at last made up his mind to at least discuss the situation with Jack. Maybe he already had a plan or maybe Bootstrap was looking too deeply into a situation that was not as bad as he was making it out to be. After all, there was reason to be in a sour mood after almost two days of terrible weather and being thrown off course a little, according to Jack, but the afternoon was too late.

"Since I be first mate, captain," Barbossa was saying in the captain's cabin before the kingly impishness of the captain at his chair, "and you said so yerself that everythin' ought to be in equal share…"

"By all means!" exclaimed Jack.

"Then by right, with everything in equal share, as ye put it, then I should know the bearings oughtn't I?"

Whether by obliviousness or in some foolish boyish manner he was taking the game to a far too risky place, Jack gave them to him. One of the stupidest mistakes Jack ever made, and by the time Bootstrap came into the cabin after having left the helm, the damage had already been sealed. Though, knowing Jack at that time, there would have been very little Bootstrap might have said to have stopped Barbossa and his conversation from taking place and ending any different.

Barbossa strutted out not even bothering to conceal his good mood, which was very noticeable for he had been rather irritated since they had stopped in Mexico. Bootstrap watched him a moment as Barbossa passed him by without much more than a strange chipping from his monkey climbing onto his shoulder from the cabin floor. Then after a pause, Bootstrap went in, just as Jack was coming out.

"Mr. Turner!" said Jack. "Why aren't you at the helm, mate?"

"Simbakka has it, he's able, captain, I'm sorry," said Bootstrap, "but there really is something I'd like to say that's been pressin' my mind."

"Well, out with it," said Jack rather impatiently. "I have to get back to my helm. No one else knows where we're going, now do they, save me and the first mate and you by a sort of default."

"Well, it's about the first mate, actually," said Bootstrap. "Well, he… he knows Captain Teague."

"Does he now?" chirped Jack. "How very interesting, but why should that matter to you?"

"Well, it's not just that, it's Mr. Barbossa, he's, well, I don't think he's all what seems."

"Of course he's not, he's a seasoned pirate!" Jack sniffed. "No one's as they seem. You're not. That's for sure. No one would peg you for a seasoned pirate at all on some port."

"Aye, I know that well enough," said Bootstrap feeling just slightly sore, for it had brought to mind that even those closest to him did not know, "but—"

Jack held up his hand. "Hold that thought, mate."

It was at that moment that the nameless but largest crew member, dark and stern came resolutely towards him.

"Captain!" he boomed deep from his chest.

"May I help you?" Jack asked.

"There's another ship on the horizon."

"Ah!" said Jack stepped past Bootstrap and following the massive pirate. He looked back only briefly to say, "We'll come back to this, mate."

Maybe it was only him, after all, Bootstrap wondered then as he deflated somewhat with a puff of air. Maybe Jack did have everything under control. It would not have been the first time Bootstrap had let his imagination get the better of him. He was far better a follower than an advisor, he knew. Just another lowly pirate like the rest of the crew under the giants of the trade. Found by Captain Teague in a small English port as a broken sailor ashamed to return to his wife and baby when his ship had failed, he then decided to become a pirate. First he was a loyal follower of Teague and then his friend Morgan until he chose to follow Teague's son after Captain Morgan's death. All the while he never once breathed a word of his change in career to his family back in England. Honestly, he did not often think about it, but he felt down now anyway, so he brushed all inner thought aside and went back to what he knew himself best at, a quiet but faithful follower, for he was not wise enough to make decisions.

Besides, even if Bootstrap had convinced Jack now to be suspicious it only would have hastened the mutiny. Barbossa had entirely the upper hand. Both ship and crew were in his pocket more than the old sea cook had the _Hispaniola_.

The other ship that had been pointed out to Jack was not coming their way, but only passing the horizon, no doubt a merchant vessel of some sort. Whether they knew the black sails and the colors or not or whether they only wanted to continue their course, they did not want to mess or bother with the _Black Pearl_. There was no place Jack could have gone on a wide open ocean save to one of the tiny islands from which there would be no escape anyway. Again, it would have only saved Barbossa the trouble of sending him to one himself.

#

"Down with Sparrow!" came the passionate tenor shout of Twigg who had just that afternoon before seemed his usual loyal self, but his shout sounded above the rest in a sea or roars from the angry crew.

Lantern light flashed from the _Black Pearl_ amid the angry men. One might have thought the ship and her crew already cursed with the madness it must have appeared to have had anyone seen it from a distance.

Then another shout rose above the rest, but it made far more sense coming from the soon-to-be bo'sun of Captain Barbossa's crew. He did not have to be passionate or very pressing to be heard above anyone and he happened to be neither.

"We should kill him now."

"Right! No use in keepin' him!" growled Koehler.

"Dash his brains!" added Clubba gleefully lifting a club, but Koehler just shoved him back with his elbow.

Jack gulped visibly as he was shuffled and was still shaking somewhat by Koehler's motion.

"Slit his slug guts all over the deck if I have to listen to his squealy little voice one more time!" Koehler snarled.

The crew cheered in agreement.

Jack, completely bound as though someone feared he might spirit himself away at any moment, had up to this point looked quite grim and bewildered enough to fit the moment, but here he had to grin nervously.

"Nah, you don't wanna do any of that," said Jack. "Ruin the deck an' all."

But this was Koehler's cue, or so he thought as he drew his sword to do exactly as he said, but just as Jack let out his shout and Koehler's blade was starting its singing swing through the night air, another and last voice weaved through the din, but it was not raised much higher than the rest. In fact it was more the presence of the man to whom the voice belonged that suddenly hushed the mob.

"Nay, that won't be necessary," said Barbossa coming down from the quarterdeck where he had been silently overseeing the work of his new crew.

His smile was broad and his broad hat tilted with it. His monkey chirped between the beats of Barbossa's heavy boots, and he looked by every meaning of the word to be the captain as he stopped lordly a few feet away from the bound and guarded Jack with the sword just inches away from his stomach.

"Withdraw yer blade, Master Koehler," ordered Barbossa.

Silently Koehler obeyed though begrudgingly.

"Oh, thanks, Hector, I owe you one," said Jack with a frown. "You're in charge of this mutiny, aren't you? I don't know what I ever did to you."

"Aye, I think ye do," said Barbossa, "after leadin' us through your mad and merry games when a pirate's life is hard enough as it is?"

The crew again broke out into roars of agreement.

"We lost ol' Hankie, poor blighter!" cried someone above the din.

"Well, we might have lost him to the Spanish anyway," said Jack helpfully. "Not much good for anything unless he sneezed into the Spanish captain's face, maybe."

But this certainly made it worse and a few more men, who had hardly cared for Hankie in the past, drew their blade and cudgels surrounding Jack on all sides.

"Jack be right!" said Barbossa then over the din though he moved not an inch from his spot.

Again the crew settled a little.

"About Hankie?" asked Ragetti with a squint of his good eye.

"About ruinin' the deck of the _Pearl_ with his blood," said Barbossa.

"Bad luck, Captain Barbossa, sir?" asked Mad Dog scratching his hair-covered ear so that he resembled an upright queer-eyed spaniel.

Barbossa shook his head.

"That would be too good o' luck for the likes of him," he said with a perfect pirate's sneer from a man who did not believe in luck except what one made for himself. "No, the dawn be fast upon us, gents, and I be thinkin' that the only suitable place for Captain Jack Sparrow is to be where only birds do gather. We make for the nearest of the scattered islands. By midmorning we'll be rid of him. Then the games be over and giving way to the treasure what all the men aboard this vessel deserve."

Naturally the crew was quite pleased with that. All except Bootstrap, of course, and Bootstrap was quite hidden in the back. He may not have been cheering, but he had no desire to voice the opposite. Bravery was never a required quality in a pirate, especially in pirate politics. Jack would not have thought the less of him for it. It was nothing personal. The winning side was always the answer, but Bootstrap did not hide his unhappy face, drooping like an old basset hound being left behind by his master as they came to the nearest island shore and set a now only hand-bound Jack upon the plank.

Barbossa meanwhile was having a bit of breakfast with an apple in hand as he watched the proceedings and looked quite pleased with himself.

"Don't I at least get a last meal?" asked Jack innocently and yes, rather desperately.

Barbossa took a bite from the apple and said nothing while he chewed and swallowed, and then he shook his head, "It'll only prolong the inevitable. Starved and dyin' o' thirst as you'll be lyin' there. I'm only sorry I won't hear the shot when ye can stand no more. That is if you can keep the weapon afore ye reach shore."

He handing what was left of the apple to the monkey which hurried away with it along the rigging. Then he showed forth the pistol which he meant to return to Jack.

"There only be one shot," said Barbossa. "Don't waste it now."

Jack frowned deeply. "I'll be sure not to."

Barbossa only laughed.

Instead of being daunted this only brought out a smile on the lips of Jack.

"I swear to you," said Jack calmly, "that the only place that bullet goes is through your sorry, slimy, bilge-filth traitorous heart."

Neither did Barbossa lose his good humor as he replied, "Well, then ye better hurry and dry out the powder b'fore we're too far out on the horizon."

The crew roared with laughter as Barbossa placed the gun into its hold on Jack's side right before Jack was shoved off the plank and into the sea.


	6. Bit of Shine

JMJ

SIX: BIT OF SHINE

Isla de Meurta. The sun had been shining almost beastly before the _Black Pearl_ entered the cay in the island's wake, and it was not named Shipwreck Cay for whimsy's sake. Although the sky had turned suddenly overcast, it was not so dark that one could not see the wreckage of ships jutting out at times above the water and diving beneath the waves. There was a silence as though in honor of those who died there, but it had nothing to do with mourning save in the case of Bootstrap, but he was not mourning the dead in the cay. His mind never left that tiny island where they had left Jack. Not even the thought of treasure entered his mind at the brink of Isla de Meurta. But the silence was caused by every pirate holding their breath as they passed through. Bo'sun even looked concerned.

The only one who did not have fear in his eyes was Captain Barbossa who knew the safe route in from Jack. His eyes were only on the island, his mind on the treasure and his heart on the _Black Pearl_ which he finally could call his own.

As they reached the island everyone became far livelier though they still spoke hushed, for in the barren stones around them it still did seem that some unknown evil eyes were watching them as they passed. They shuddered and whispered to each other over queer and obscure superstitions and feelings of dread that might come out of the nooks and crannies. Though they kept reminding each other too that shine and treasure waiting for them if they could just but survive getting to it.

Pintel and Ragetti carried the idol keys behind Barbossa as the crew trekked single file along a narrow ledge until they reached what was obviously a door in the wall.

"That's the door!?" demanded the squeaky voice of Jacoby breaking the hush of the crew. "We could have saved the trip to Mexico and just blown up the door!" He had a small explosive already in his hand and was preparing to light it.

"No, stupid!" cried Mallot. "You'll cause a cave-in, and then we'll never get inside!"

Some of the others agreed, but other some agreed with Jacoby.

"Lay down the explosive, Master Jacoby," muttered Barbossa without looking behind; though his annoyance was more than evident even if it passed by quickly as he marched to the door to see where the keys would go.

On either side of the door they were plenty obvious. He turned and motioned Pintel and Ragetti to him and he took the keys. A hush returned as everyone waited for the captain to do the honors. The keys were first one and then another placed into the slots and turned inside. Then the door began to rumble before it slid down with a bang just a touch, but it was unlocked. The door slid easily away into some slot to the side. How it exactly worked, none cared. They never had to open it again, and even the keys had become part of the horde then since they were streaked with gold. They had to just contain themselves form pushing past Barbossa in their excitement; though some had no problem pushing past Pintel and Ragetti.

"Hey!" Ragetti cried.

"We have a right to see first!" snapped Pintel, and he shoved his way back to the front with Ragetti just behind him.

"The treasure was a lie!" exclaimed Twigg. "There are no rivers flowing with gold."

"You made that up yourself, mate," Simbakka reminded him.

Twigg still looked disappointed until after a moment Ragetti suddenly cried, "No, there's some doubloons in this water here!"

That got everyone's attention. Even Pintel in his excitement pushed his companion out of the way to see. The crew was so excited about the water and picking up coins that none noticed Barbossa except for Bootstrap as he just came in last through the entrance.

Bootstrap eyed the crew first, but quickly looked up at Barbossa and watched the firm steady and unhurried pace of the man drawn to the chest like a gnat to the flame. Bootstrap himself felt somewhat drawn to it despite his melancholy, and he found himself coming up behind Barbossa rather closer than he intended until just before Barbossa reached his hand to touch the chest he spun around violently to his boisterous crew filling their trousers with as much gold coins as they could scrounge up, for there was not as much as they acted there was. Then straightening himself he glanced idly at Bootstrap and pushed him aside before returning to the crew.

"Gents!"

Only a few looked up at the first call, as the rest continued pecking like clucking hens for their coins, but Barbossa was saved the trouble of calling to them a second time. Bo'sun, ever alert, stood up and faced the crew and told them to listen to their captain.

Instantly the crew stopped what they were doing and spun around. The only sound was the tinkling of a couple dropped coins and the rushing of the streams.

"Thank ye, Bo'sun," said Barbossa majestically. "If ye be tired of playing with chips, then feast yer eyes on what we came for."

Stepping aside Barbossa with an even more majestic wave of his hand, displayed the chest for all eyes to behold. It rested upon an altar of stone, perfectly placed and lit by the light of the moon shining from a hole in the ceiling of the cave, which no one noticed odd since before they had come in the clouds had been brewing a soup of fog. No one cared. It was almost a holy light as far as they were concerned, for such a treasure was definitely the grail of a pirate's dreams, and as they dashed the lock and lifted the lid none were disappointed.

Solid gold medallions they were like, carved into grinning skulls, but even the most superstitious among them did anything more than shiver once from thrill far more than fear. A fever took them either way, whether from the cursed aura of the island or simply their own pirate's greed in their hearts was awakened a veritable thirst for the treasure before them as though they meant to ladle it up and drink them.

It was almost a religious ceremony as each pirate came with reverence to the altar to receive their share from Barbossa and the Bo'sun. Barbossa's share was both his and Jack's, and the only other person who received more than the others was the Bo'sun as Barbossa had yet to finalize who was the first mate. Perhaps he counted Bo'sun as both. But there was no quarrel. The only one who seemed dissatisfied in the hushed ceremony was Bootstrap who came reluctantly up last, and he lifted his head hunkered over and eyes drooped as he looked up at Barbossa.

"Be thankful ye get a share," muttered Barbossa with a grin nearly as sinister as the grinning skulls that mocked Bootstrap as he took them from the bottom of the chest.

He never imagined reaching the treasure as being like this. No Jack and no thrill and no life.

#

This line of the thought was the exact opposite of the sentiments of the rest of the crew naturally who were making as merry as school boys let out from school for Christmas once they returned to the _Black Pearl_. An explosion of lights and music (even if crude to listen to, for few were musically inclined) penetrated into the night like a starburst—a parade float on an ominous sea. From far away it might have even looked like an oasis of cheer in the otherwise dreary surroundings.

"Don't feel bad, ol' Bootstrap!" said Ragetti, one of the few who noticed the mournful Bootstrap standing in a corner with a bottle of rum and looking grim.

Bootstrap glanced up at him idly.

"See?! Jack's right here!" Ragetti said thrusting a finger to the monkey chirping above them. "Captain says there ain't no difference anyway!"

And he laughed drunkenly along with his usual cohort and a few others.

Bootstrap only squeezed his eyes shut miserably, little knowing that Jack was safe and sound by that point and already making plans to get his ship back.

The way back to Tortuga was the fastest trip any of them knew, and the party started up again bigger and better than before.

"What are you gunna do with your share, Pintel?" cried Ragetti just before they made port.

"First!" exclaimed Pintel excitedly. "I'm gunna buy my own boat! The biggest ship in Tortuga! Then I'm gunna get me a crew an' captain it myself. Captain Pintel! What doya think?"

"I think you should be a little more thrifty about the boat and join me makin' of meself a Spanish don!"

"Say whah?" demanded Pintel. "It don't matter how rich you are you can't just _make_ yourself a don. You don't even speak Spanish."

"Aye, I'm gunna buy a casa in New Spain and marry meself a Spanish condesa and you can do the same."

"What's a condesa?"

"A countess from Spain. We'll live just across the valley from each other. Then we can invite each other to our parties and live like kings, and even if we ever do run out of the gold we'll have the dowries of the condesas, and your ship that we can turn into many ships and start our own fleet of ships on the side. It don't matter if you can't speak Spanish if you marry a Spanish condesa!"

"Right!" grinned Pintel.

Ragetti giggled goofily.

But suddenly Pintel's face fell and Ragetti's laughter was cut short.

"But where will we find the condesas?"

Ragetti paused to think about that one. "We'll buy everything to make us look like dons and then they'll think we _are_ dons before they marry us. Just like in the stories."

"No one's gunna b'lieve you're a don."

"Well, maybe an Italian duca!"

"Now, what's a duca?" demanded Pintel. "And anyways you don't know Italian neither just cuz you're one fourth Italian."

"Maybe she won't know Italian neither," laughed Ragetti. "I can fake me accent right enough."

Pintel's good humor returned. "Teach it to me too! But first we buy my boat!"

"Right! Boat first!"

They were almost the first ones off as they ran into the port to find their new ship. The evening was fast approaching and the fog was still thick behind them. Barbossa glanced back briefly at the gray wisps in the air a moment before he went to his favorite tavern. The air felt neither chill nor damp, he noticed. In fact it did not feel much like anything, but he shook his head and went inside.

Jack the monkey made a squeal of excitement, for he had never been to Tortuga before. Barbossa smiled briefly. He hated to admit it, but he was starting to like the creature hanging on his shoulder. More threatening and more useful than a parrot by any means, he saw well enough.

"Good boy, Jack," he muttered.

#

" _Doya know what it's like?" asked Pintel suddenly._

 _Now it was Ellis' turn to look up in surprise. "What?"_

" _To find out that everythin' you thought was stable in the world is sudd'nly not at all what you thought?" said Pintel looking the boy gravely in the eyes. "Sure there's always the fear of ill omens and cursed waters, but they're always part of just dyin'. The type o' thing that almost makes you wish you could cuz anythin' seems better than livin' less than half a life forever. Feelin' anythin' sounds better than feelin' nothin' so that you wish you could feel the blade slicin' though ya or the bullet piercin' ya when enemies are fightin' against ya. Almost, almost. Cuz man weren't meant to live for eternity in mortal flesh, and when ya got eternity on earth you realize just how important mortality us. You know that thought?"_

 _Ellis shook his head just a little._

 _Pintel smiled. "Of course you don't, you blighter, but I can tell ya for some it's hard to admit it, 'specially if you're someone who always had control of his own destiny. Who never even b'lieved in ill omens b'fore that curse fell upon the_ Pearl _."_

" _Did you have that feeling, Mr. Pintel?" asked Ellis._

" _I'm_ talkin' _about_ Barbossa _!" hissed Pintel who obviously did not wish to speak about his personal experience with the curse beyond what he already alluded to._

" _I know, I know, I'm sorry," Ellis said holding up his hands in his defense. "I didn't mean any harm. Captain Barbossa was a proud, ruthless man. Naturally, he would not believe in curses."_

 _Pintel drummed the table for a few seconds grumbling things indecipherable to himself until he said, "Where was I now?"_

" _Barbossa was about to find out that the crew was cursed?" offered Ellis delicately._

" _Aye! And unless you come up wif a better story after me, you really owe me for all the interruptions you make. You're worse than Ragetti."_

#

Barbossa would have left Tortuga after the first night. He was not one to waste his fortunes purely on things that would not last in a tacky place like Tortuga. Ambitious as he was he had plans for his treasure even if there were plenty of plans that had to with food, drink, and instant pleasures, but there were better places than Tortuga to have these things if one had money and class. He always had had class when he wanted to but now he had money to go with it.

It was not drunkenness or idleness that kept him there. It was an uncertainty. He hated uncertainties, and he usually did not have them. Yet before his mind began playing with the idea of a curse, he felt that _some_ thing was not right.

By the evening of the fourth day, he found himself standing in front of the setting of the sun out from his room into the bay. A ship was sailing off into the horizon. The red gleam of sunset shimmered around it as it left as though to some fairy island. The main difference about this evening than last was that as Barbossa turned back into the room he was alone aside from Jack, and at the moment not even Jack was about. He did not feel like having human company at all right now; though, he mildly wished the monkey was back.

He glanced down at an empty bowl on a low crude table just beneath the window. It had only been filled with nuts not long ago and it was larger than the whole monkey by twice. He himself had only eaten a couple for he had taken his meals down in the tavern, so that Jack had eaten every last one. This would not have seemed too odd, but for the fact that food had been on his mind recently. He had only eaten himself an hour before, but he was disappointed that there were none in the bowl to eat.

He felt about as hungry as Jack and twice as thirsty, and he thought about going to the tavern again even though he had just left from there.

And there was one other difference about this evening that Barbossa did not take too much interest in. Unlike the weather since the _Black Pearl_ left Isla de Meurta, the sky had cleared, and it seemed it would remain clear into the night give or take a few clouds. There was still a faint mist over the bay in the direction of the Pearl, but that too seemed so thin that it would not be long before it wisped into the dusk.

A breeze came on suddenly then and blew his hair and clothes, but the way the window was set up must have prevented him from feeling the brunt of it. In fact he almost had not felt it at all. Nor did he feel the difference between the strong setting sun and the dusk settling in. Neither cold nor warm. One could almost say that physically Barbossa felt nothing, except maybe hunger and thirst, which made no sense.

He glowered into the bay again as a small gathering of clouds shielded the moon so that the stars only lit up the evening faint though they still were.

Was he sick?

It was the strangest illness he ever knew if he was, and he hardly felt weak or tired, and nausea did not even cross his mind. He stood brooding over this thought like some raven of ill omen himself in the window with his hat suddenly flapping from a gust of wind so strong it almost took it and he felt nothing, or at least noticed nothing. With a shake of his head then, he withdrew from the window a few paces. If he was sick it was at least ignorable enough. He would leave Tortuga tomorrow, he determined, and go on with his plans, but his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden chirping chatter just outside the window.

Barbossa's eyes widened as he leered up the creature. It sounded like Jack. It pretty much looked like Jack if Jack had been skinned and gutted alive and still be able to move about, and he seemed unconcerned as he cocked his head curiously at Barbossa and leapt from the nearby palm and onto the window sill in the light of the moon that had suddenly been released from a cloud bank. He had a half eaten piece of fruit in his mouth and he was gnawing away at its nut for a moment or two before he leapt the rest of the way into the room.

Then Jack returned visibly to normalcy.

Barbossa however still watched him as he ate his prize. For a few seconds he was blanker in mind than he had ever been before, but it quickly passed. He was not about to admit hallucinations. It was a trick of the light. It angered him that he had allowed himself to reach a state in which his mind could play such tricks. He had not been that concerned.

With a low growl he turned away, but just as he was about to leave a second time, a shrieking ricocheted over the otherwise rather unusual silence of Tortuga. It was a chorus of two behind the monkey's chattering, and perhaps an echo resounding from some dark corner of Barbossa's mind that already knew what had a happened, but its chill lasted no more than a couple seconds, and it did more to awake Barbossa than chill him. All aptitude returned to him as he marched to the window and looked down to see that the shouting was coming towards his inn on the hill.

From out of the brush like a pair of frightened jackals stumbled what looked like from a distance to be Pintel and Ragetti coming from the general direction of the docks. They pushed and shoved like monkeys as the clouds returned and shadowed them. Then they ran up as fast as they could to the stairs to run up to the sort of balcony along the edge of the third story of the inn where Barbossa soon stood under the shelter of the eaves.

"Oh, captain!" they cried. "Captain!"

They all but fell on their faces before him as to the feet of a god.

Their terror was a chill to their cores, obviously, and they seemed beyond reason as they tried to explain their plight.

"We was on the boat!" "Our boat!" "The boat we just bought!" "It's cursed!" "He's cursed!" "It was _him_!" "No, it was him!" "I didn't do nothin'!" "You broke somethin'!" "No wonder it was so cheap!" "It wasn't!" "It was!" "It was you!" "No, you!" And these were only the intelligible fragments, for there was plenty more that they said that they themselves probably could not have deciphered afterwards aside from crude insults, swears and snarls directed at each other.

Barbossa fired suddenly and Ragetti let out a squeal as the bullet almost hit his foot and he looked down fearfully at the smoking hole in the wooden platform.

"I'll give ye really somethin' to be afeared about!" growled Barbossa.

The pair gulped and instantly stood at attention. They glanced at each other briefly and put space in between each other; they watched each other as though afraid one might bight the other if they were not careful. Then shakily and wringing their hands they returned to the captain.

"I be not yer wet nurse, if ye have a problem then fix it yerselves, ye sorry spineless whelps!"

"Aye, Captain!" agreed Pintel glancing from the captain back to Ragetti and back again.

"We're sorry, Captain," said Ragetti miserably lowering his head but not without glancing quickly to Pintel and then lowered his direction back to the ground when their eyes met suddenly.

For a moment Barbossa leered at them. Then after that pause he returned roughly back inside without another word to them.

"You think we made the captain mad?" whispered Ragetti after a few moments of ominous silence.

"Of course, he's mad," hissed Pintel. "He's got a right to be mad."

"Well," whispered Ragetti again after another moment of silence as the pair pretended not to be looking at each other carefully. "I s'pose the captain's right."

"He's always right."

"No, I mean that we should take care of it ourselves," whispered Ragetti. "They sold us a cursed boat, they did."

"Right," nodded Pintel with uncertainty. "How?"

"We sell it?" offered Ragetti.

"Maybe we should just burn it," said Pintel. "Burning gets rid of curses as far as I know."

"Like when they burn witches?" shivered Ragetti.

"Yeah. Ya gotta burn it out so it don't come back."

"That sounds right," agreed Ragetti.

There was a long pause as they stared out over the bay in the direction of their boat. The light of the moon was released again more ominously than before, but they were sheltered beneath the eaves of the roof of the inn.

"So," muttered Pintel then. "After you."

Ragetti shook his head. "I ain't goin' out there. Not if you go first or not. Maybe we're safe if we stay off the boat."

Pintel frowned but said nothing for a few moments more.

"Did I really look the same as you?" asked Ragetti then.

Pintel threw and ugly glare and then said, "The ship is cursed."

"…unless it's not the ship…" said Ragetti in a hollow voice just barely above a whisper.

"What you mean?" demanded Pintel. "We're fine now. You look fine. You feel fine, don't ya?"

"No, I don't feel fine and neither do you."

"Well, we gotta at least get off the captain's balcony," muttered Pintel.

"You first," said Ragetti.

"Fine then," said Pintel, straightening himself. "I will."

Ragetti sunk further along the wall so that he was squatting.

"Well, c'mon," hissed Pintel.

Straightening upright again, Ragetti followed a few paces behind Pintel reluctantly, but as Pintel started down the steps, Ragetti let out a squeak and tumbled backwards into the wall.

Pintel swung around to the Ragetti cowering on the floor with shaking hands over his head until one began reaching for his sword clumsily.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded Pintel.

Then he happened to look down at himself, or at least the part of him that was out of the shelter of the roof that stuck out of his raggedly clothes like the living dead. Fleshless fingers and naked shin he thrust back up the steps. He fell down next to Ragetti.

"Stay away from me, you accursed!" cried Ragetti, shoving him away.

"You looked no different! You looked no different!" cried Pintel.

"No! You're the cursed one!" shouted Ragetti, and he tried to squirm away as Pintel grabbed him and tried to shove him out onto the steps. "I's inno—!"

 _BANG_!

The second shot fired into the night, and Pintel and Ragetti froze where they stood for a long while in mid combat. Then at last they returned to the floor where they remained, not one speaking to the other as they stared out into the moon-bathed bay and the image of the moon itself shining like a cursed jewel reflected in the water.


	7. Bloodlust

SEVEN: BLOODLUST

Barbossa was not asleep when just before dawn he heard the roars outside the door. He was up in a moment from where he had been lying to see his door burst in and a riot of pirates exploding towards him. His gun was in hand by instinct like the flexing of a muscle, and he glowered as he saw which pirates these were. They were some of the members of his own crew, and they were led by Koehler.

"Barbossa!" Koehler boomed.

"What be yer problem, gentlemen?" growled Barbossa in return. "Have I not given me word? Have ye not gotten yer shares! Have ye not made it safely to Tortuga? If any b'lieve I be not a man of honor, speak, and none of this brawl before my door, ye ungrateful dogs!"

"It's your fault this happened!" growled Koehler. "The whole treasure was a fraud, and you no better than Jack Sparrow!"

"Cursed, we are! Cursed and it's your fault!" cried Twigg.

Pintel and Ragetti were not among the riot by were still on the opposite side of the stairs for a moment before they looked around the corner uneasily at the part of the crowd sticking somewhat outside the door of the Barbossa's room. They had just woken up from where they had fallen asleep on the boards, to get out of the crowd's way when they had stormed up the steps moments before. They looked at each other and crept a little closer.

"Cursed?" laughed Barbossa. "In what way be ye cursed? Ye'd be fools to b'lieve that a safe passage home full of treasure be a sign of ill portent."

"We can't fill ourselves and get full." "We don't get drunk at all!" "I fell in the water and didn't feel wet!" "There's no warmth in me hands!" "And the living death!" "Simbakka saw it with his own eyes!" "Aye, I did, mate! I ain't proud of it!"

"You brought us there!" growled Koehler. "You fix it!"

"There can't be afixin' what's driven into the minds of feeble dogs who b'lieve every physical blight be a sign of omens!" snarled Barbossa cocking his pistol to show he meant business.

That seemed to be exactly what Koehler wanted however and hardly had Barbossa cocked the weapon when he fired his, and Barbossa in an instant afterwards fired too. As Barbossa focused on Koehler he could not believe his ill luck that he had missed at such short range, but apparently Koehler had missed too, for although he had noticed a shove of impacted force, he felt nothing now. Then he noticed the crew.

Deathly silent they had suddenly become, and as pales as ghosts as they stared at their captain, but their eyes were not on his face. Every man, including Pintel and Ragetti at the window were looking with eyes bulging down at Barbossa's chest. Reflexively, Barbossa reached a hand down and looked. For a split second Jack Sparrow's warning to him flashed through his mind of how one day he would stop his heart, for that was where the bullet had struck, he saw as he pulled away part of his shirt and coat. He touched the hole, and, although he quickly forgot Sparrow, for the first time in his proud life Barbossa felt a terror that struck to the very core.

"Koehler's been shot through the heart too!" shouted Pintel thrusting his hand through the window at the hole in Koehler's thinner clothing.

"It's true!" Mad Dog howled miserably. "We _are_ cursed men!"

 _#_

" _The first thing Barbossa did after he recovered from his shock," said Pintel, rather drumming in voice now as if repeating some chant or memory song. A roll of dull thunder outside added to the ambiance and just a hint of a smile on Pintel's thin lips showed it pleased him well, "was to order the crew to assemble. Rage filled his heart now whether driven through with a bullet or no. It fell out the first time he was under moonlight, and I'll tell ya, boy, none was more fierce under moonlight than Captain Barbossa. Not even Bo'sun could compare. And he had a blood lust. We all had. Part of the curse, no doubt. A festerin' envy of those whose blood was uncursed._

" _When not all the crew could be found on Tortuga, we left without them, and his aim was for the Isla de Meurta, and the crew searched high and low for anythin' that would explain the predicament an' anyway that would give an inklin' as to how one could escape this fate. The livin' death…"_

 _Ellis' face showed how engrossed he was now. His eyes were wide and his mouth open slightly ajar as his mind was lost in the tale, and when Pintel paused tauntingly he urged him to go on._

 _Pintel grinned gleefully before he grimly continued, "We even destroyed the door, cuz it was someone's bright idea to look behind the slots where the doors hid. Nothin' left of an enclosement after that. Event'ally, a book was found. A journal of sorts. All in Spanish, of course, and even those who could read could not read in Spanish, but Espino—sorta." He shrugged. "And that was what started the mess, really, was that Espino couldn't read his own language proper like. Gettin' back the gold? Well, that made sense enough to everyone, but the 'blood to be repaid'? That was somethin' else. Espino didn't know whose blood. We assumed anyone's blood. But we did need the rest of the crew to find the gold. So the captain set out for 'em. The gold an' the crew to find the gold we missed, and Tortuga hadn't had such a massacre, I can tell ya, since I ever been born. Before or after. Not till the British tired to shut it down a few years back, and even that wasn't nearly as bloody._

" _There was only one crew member that was far, far away, however. A member that was nearly across the Atlantic again b'fore he realized that his problems were not in his guilty head and heart alone, but were part of somethin' far more unnatural."_

" _Bootstrap Bill," breathed Ellis suddenly._

 _Pintel eyed him suspiciously a moment, studying Ellis carefully until he seemed to come to a decision that satisfied him, and his cheerful mood, if one wanted to call it that, returned._

" _Aye, Bootstrap Bill."_

#

At first Bootstrap Bill had thought to start over. He had hoped to leave piracy and, with his new treasure, try to live a life of decency in England with his wife and son. Of course, by the time he reached the shores of London, he knew he could not return. He had seen the living death himself, and just barely managed to hide it from the others aboard the ship he had been crossing on. He knew instantly it was the curse of Isla de Meurta, and he knew that Jack had now been the one better off in the end because it. He would have been cursed otherwise just like him and no doubt the rest of the crew.

Thinking that it was a permanent thing, Bootstrap wandered about London like a ghost in a constant state of indecision. Only twice did he haunt his own residence, and the second time was the last night he was in England.

Through the window he could just barely make out the sleeping form of his wife in bed, and he lowered his head so forlornly that he might have blown away in the wind like a pile of dust, but he did not. He remained heavily where he stood like a weeping willow over the window.

The sky was clouded over and the air filled with mist on the quiet street as he finally tore himself away, but it seemed the moon was still able to peek through for just a moment, for as he trudged down an alleyway streets away, he saw a skeleton with burning eyes coming towards him dressed in rags and armed with pistol and sword.

"Bootstrap Bill," it sneered with a familiar voice.

Bootstrap did not have to look down at himself to know that he looked the same as the other save perhaps without the fury-reddened eyes. He did not speak in return; though he knew the voice belonged to Maximo. Behind him another showed up from out of the shadows, and he figured him to be Simbakka. Regardless of their skeletal forms, they had never possessed such hateful eyes before not even when they threw Jack overboard. It was the hateful rage of the lost and the cursed, and Bootstrap looked away.

"The captain wants your presence," said Simbakka.

"What for? What does it matter?" muttered Bootstrap. "Hasn't he done enough? Why can't he leave me be to wallow where I will?"

Slowly their forms returned to normal save Maximo and Simbakka's anger-filled eyes.

"The gold!" hissed Simbakka.

"We need it back!" added Maximo. "You don't have to wallow, you fool."

"The captain knows the way out," said Simbakka.

"He sent us to get you." "We knew you'd be here." "It took us long enough to find you in a city like this." "You carry the gold now. We can feel it down this way suddenly like never before!" "We need all the gold and for that he wants all the crew to figure out where they used it last." "We already found the piece you traded for your passage here." "Nothing left of the ship. Just the gold piece alone."

"How does he know this will work?" asked Bootstrap tersely.

"Because that's how the originally cursed got back to normal," said Maximo.

Here Maximo held out his hand greedily as though he expected Bootstrap to hand over the rest of his pieces, but Bootstrap stepped back a pace away from him.

"I'll give it back to the captain myself, my share," Bootstrap insisted.

At first Maximo looked about to bite, but he didn't, and neither he nor Simbakka had to urge Bootstrap much to get him to come however reluctantly back aboard a ship that was eventually attacked by the _Black Pearl_ in open sea. No one survived saved the cursed three…

The next port that Barbossa and his crew attacked was in the Caribbean again. The longer they were cursed, the stronger they felt the pull of the gold when it was upon open water, and yet there was one parcel that would in time make it back to London without the notice of the _Pearl_ , for distance had yet to become irrelevant in their feel of the gold even over water, which eventually grew so strong that if a piece was over water it could be felt from leagues away (only a short distance ever over land).

Perhaps it was partly to give a family waiting for a father's return something to make their lives easier, but it was more the act of a miserable man who had nothing left to spite the man he had come to hate, the only revenge he could take. Yet Bootstrap did feel a sort of self-loathing the more the curse continued, and not long after he had sent away the gold piece Bootstrap knew that he had sent it away for more than even revenge. He felt in his heart that he had done the wrong, he and all the crew, and that their punishment was due and just. The thought became so strong inside him too that he could no longer keep it inside of him. Softly, it came out at first, leaking through whispers and mutters to himself like the first rising of steam from the kettle, especially right after a raid. It was after such a raid, however that even in whispers the sour, sensitive crewmates began to hear as from the kettle starting to scream…

#

Swabbing the deck was a way to keep the crew busy. Barbossa did not exactly want the _Black Pearl_ to be filthy, but it was more that he knew that in between raids that the only way to keep the crew from stalling their time with bickering and fighting was to keep them busy. Thus it was that Twigg swabbed not far from where Bootstrap was leaning over the side of the rail and staring out at the smoke still rising from the port they had sabotaged the evening before.

The sun was not shining and it rarely did over the _Pearl_. It seemed to clear over them at night often enough just to remind them of their curse, but the daytime hours were always dreary, and often too foggy to see such smoke in the distance. Not so today, and as Twigg made his way past the sagging blood hound form of Bootstrap Bill gazing over the their latest slaughter, he heard softly but quite distinctly Bootstrap say the words, "We deserve this."

Twigg swung his head towards him.

"What did you say?" he demanded.

Although Bootstrap jumped a little to realize he had been overheard, after a moment of silence he turned rather sourly towards Twigg, a once loyal member of Jack Sparrow's crew himself and a traitor. He said firmly, "The curse. We deserve to be cursed."

Throwing down his mop, Twigg kicked the bucket so that it splashed over the deck. He yanked Bootstrap from the edge. Bootstrap did little to resist though he might have with such a scrawny and spindly man as Twigg, and Twigg shook his violently.

"Deserve to be cursed! Why you slimy gut-brained dog! Take it back, you!"

Just as violently as he had grabbed him Twigg released him. He could not nearly throw him down as he wished, but Grapple was a little more capable and he heard what Twigg was shouting.

"Who says we deserve the curse?!" he demanded, weapons in hand, and he had a couple deadly ones.

"Bootstrap Bill!" cried Twigg. "It's Bootstrap Bill what thinks we deserve to live in endless agony between death and livin'. Can't even drown our sorrows in rum with it takin' no effect!"

Grapple grinned vilely and wild-eyed; though Bootstrap remained for the most part unmoved. What had he to fear for even Bo'sun had he showed up?

"Oh, really?" Grapple demanded. "Then maybe he deserves this!"

And he threw a hatchet so that it struck Bootstrap just beneath the chest. The impact was felt, and it threw him back with a sickening gulp as he fell back against the rail, but no actual pain was truly felt however much the brain expected it to be so. The confusion was enough to make one dizzy, and indeed Bootstrap's mind took a whirl as though suddenly faint from loss of blood; though not much oozed out.

Then Grapple shoved Bootstrap down and Twigg rooted for him along with Grapple's nearly-toady friend Mallot. A few other new comers soon followed and though these did not quite know what the fight way about, they were so bored out of their skulls that they were happy for some entertainment. Most of the crew had decided that they did not like the miserable Bootstrap always sulking at every move they made anyway and missing Jack Sparrow who some even blamed for the curse.

Then suddenly through the roaring of the spectators, a boom of a voice roared, "The captain's orders are to keep quiet!"

"Aww, shut up, Bo'sun!" snarled Nipperkin.

Bo'sun grabbed him suddenly around the neck and dragged him to his face in a motion that might have broken his neck had it not been for the curse.

"The captain said—" Bo'sun started very darkly, but was interrupted by the voice of the captain himself.

"What be all this fool skylarkin'?"

"Captain," said Bo'sun calmly dropping Nipperkin onto the deck.

Instinctively Nipperkin grabbed at his throat and scowled at Bo'sun before he rose to his feet.

Grapple suddenly rushed away from Bootstrap, and the captain reached down and roughly pulled the hatchet out of his chest before turning round to the crew and throwing it aside.

"Well? Speak!"

"He says we deserve to be cursed, Bootstrap does!" cried Mallot in a shrill voice thrusting his finger towards Bootstrap now as he pulled himself into a more upright position.

"Yeah!" roared the crew.

Most of them did not know this until just now, but it was not a big surprise coming from Bootstrap.

Like a mouse before a lion Bootstrap cowered before Barbossa. A magnificent presence the captain always carried, but to have his anger directed at one was a thing Bootstrap almost could not handle. It was almost worse than having been able to have felt that hatchet through his chest, or so he thought at that moment.

The monkey Jack on Barbossa's shoulder chirped suddenly as though giving a merry suggestion to his master, and Barbossa smiled suddenly almost as though he understood him. Either way he stepped up over the shivering mass of Bootstrap and said with dangerous eyes and a more dangerous sneer, "Well, Master Turner. Somethin' on yer chest ye'd like to shed?"

Bootstrap lowered his head and wrung his hands.

"Bash his brains in!" snarled Clubba.

"Throw 'im overboard!" growled Mallot.

"Sayin' we deserve to be cursed!" Twigg spat.

"Maybe _he_ does! But _I_ don't!" snapped Ragetti with a childish pout.

Barbossa ignored them, as he patiently waited for Bootstrap's response like a snake at the entrance of a burrow.

"I…it's against the code," said Bootstrap at last.

"To say we don't deserve this?" growled Mallot.

"To mutiny against a captain that never proved himself wrong," said Bootstrap with a little firmer purpose in his voice. "To leave that captain to die when everything he ever did be true to his word and purpose. We made an agreement, all of us, to serve the captain of the _Black Pearl_ , if he holds to his payment. He never steered us wrong."

"What about the storm?" demanded Simbakka with a roar of agreement from the others.

"Old Hankie!" Pintel reminded everyone.

"We would have lost some in the battle with the Spaniards too," said Bootstrap.

Barbossa chuckled.

"Perhaps, perhaps not," he said, "but the code has nothing against myself or anyone here when he went in without a plan to get the idol keys. Without a thought to the loss of not even himself. So the code has nothing to say about obeying a captain who is mad."

The crew cheered their captain on.

Bootstrap closed his eyes briefly and tightly clenched his teeth.

"We still deserve this," he said, "pirate or no, we deserve this now. There's no reason to do what we're doing."

"Trying to save ourselves from the curse!?" demanded Mallot about to swing his mallot now.

"Slaughtering everyone in our path! Innocent blood on our traitorous hands besides Jack Sparrow!" snapped Bootstrap. "There's no reason for it! There's no reason for any of this! Whether in this life or the next we all deserved this hell, and it's where we would all be if we were not here!"

"Stupid, gutless—!" Without a further thought, Pintel fired a shot through impulse right through Bootstrap.

Again the impact did nothing; though now the crew was roaring with fury! Some demanded to have the permission to rip Bootstrap to shreds while others were about to do so anyway.

"It'll do no good, and ye all know that," said the captain calmly amidst the noise.

"Then what are we going to do with him, captain?" asked Koehler.

There was a moment's silence, as the captain returned his vision to Bootstrap covered his head still against the blows that had been aimed for him. The crew watched Barbossa in anticipation until at last he said, "Bring a canon."

Bootstrap lifted his head slowly.

"Are we gunna blast him out to sea, captain?" sniggered Ragetti like a half rabid imp.

"Nay," said Barbossa, "the only thing that will ensure that when we break free of the curse Master Turner will not live to see it, and he can meet his maker whom he feels so in tune with so as to judge our curse."

And after the canon was strapped to Bootstrap's bootstraps and his hands were bound so that he could not touch them, he was shoved into the sea with a cry and a plunging splash. The crew laughed and congratulated each other in getting rid of such a bilge rat, but were halted in their merrymaking suddenly as Barbossa straightened himself larger than life and demanded, "Be there any other guilty dog among ye that feels the need to relieve his conscience?"

Silence befell the crew, and Barbossa looked satisfied. With a sweep of his coat he returned to his cabin and warned that any man who dared to interrupt his plans for their next move would risk joining Bootstrap Bill Turner in benthic depths.


	8. The Hidden Piece and the Lost Piece

JMJ

EIGHT: THE HIDDEN PIECE AND THE LOST PIECE

"882 pieces, captain!" said Pintel with a grin.

"That's how Maximo figured it," said Ragetti nodding.

"Aye, captain!" said Maximo. "882 pieces, just like we wan'ed. We found every last one like ya thought!"

It had been several months since they left Bootstrap at the bottom of the ocean, and several months too since Bootstrap had been taken by the _Flying Dutchman_ , but the crew of the _Black Pearl_ had not been idle. The pull of the gold seemed to be no longer present save from those pieces they already gained, and those last few months had been a terror for the settlements the _Pearl_ passed by however much a dark pleasure for the crew, especially now that they felt they were so near the end of their curse…

"Good!" said Barbossa curtly to Maximo. "That's what I be wantin' to hear."

He was busy with their captive and did not turn to the speakers or to the gold. He called to Espino to translate what the captive said since he was next to useless in reading his own language. The captive watched the captain and shivered slightly as Jack cocked his furry head at him ominously from the captain's shoulder.

"Whose blood be we needin'?" Barbossa asked calmly but dangerously. "If the rest of yer crew be not enough to satisfy the blood, what be we missin'?"

Espino told the captive the questions, and the captive shuddered again before looking down upon the book, muttering what he read in his native tongue.

Barbossa eyed Espino impatiently.

Espino made a face.

"The blood of the crew," he said as he looked up dismayed.

"We can't kill ourselves!" cried Pintel.

"Then what would be the point of curin' the curse even if we could!?" sobbed Ragetti. "He's lyin'. Tell him to tell us the truth!"

The crew agreed and with a boisterous roaring they started to close in on Espino as if it was his fault.

"Stop!" shouted Barbossa then holding up his hand for silence, his eyes were again on the captive. "Ask him if he be certain this be the case? Cortez did not kill himself, that's for certain."

Espino translated to the captive and the captive grew more uncomfortable than before; though he spoke more intensely and glanced up at Barbossa and faltered again most upset.

"What's he say?" demanded Simbakka wringing his hands anxiously.

"He says that the names are mixed up somehow, because Cortez never came for gold, he came for a crusade against the demon gods that thirsted for blood more than us, and though we may call him an overzealous crusader we cannot call him a gold thief."

Barbossa was about to interfere, but then Espino added with a thrust-up finger, "He also says that yes, the journal says the curse was broken by the blood of everyone who stood before the chest and took even a piece of it."

"That means they must've bled themselves without killin' themselves!" shouted Twigg.

Immediately the crew went to work doing just that. It was difficult to get blood to come from their cursed veins when they wanted it to come out, but they did what they could. Except for Barbossa. He stood very darkly—darker than before—and Espino who was the only crew member (besides possibly Bo'sun out of the corner of his eye) who noticed the captain.

"Does he say anythin' else?" Barbossa said as the captive began to mutter again.

"Oh, aye, captain!" said Espino. "He says if it's anyone he pegs the curse on the man who tried to interfere with Cortez and do something stupid to try to get the gold. Panfilo Narvaez. Because he "

 _Bang_!

The captive was shot down, dead face-first on the book. Through the smoke of his weapon Barbossa steamed with anger and hatred.

"I care not which Spaniard is to blame, they had not a missin' piece!"

The rest of the crew turned suddenly and afraid. No one durst ask him what the matter was, and Espino especially shivered in his threadbare shoes. With good reason did he fear, for the next person the captain took his rage on was Espino.

"If you were able to die, Master Espino, I would be grantin' you that fate to be sure!" Barbossa told him.

Espino let out a squeak.

"But I thought we had all the missin' pieces!" cried Mallot unable to contain himself any longer it seemed.

But suddenly Koehler's eyes narrowed with realization as he growled, "Bootstrap Bill!"

The crew gasped in horror.

"The missin' member!" moaned Pintel.

The captain growled. "Back to the _Pearl_!"

The crew did not have to be told twice.

#

" _It took us weeks to find it," said Pintel in a very dark and quiet tone now. His eyes were as though searching for "it" now with his eyes through many waters, and Ellis watched them in wonder, before Pintel blinked suddenly and went on. "But find it we did, and what we found was not enough."_

" _The canon," breathed Ellis._

" _The ropes were there and sea weed and filth, but not an inkling as to what happened to Bootstrap Bill," muttered Pintel, "but you prob'ly know all about that, don't ya? Sucked away to Davy Jones Locker. Revenged us all, Bootstrap Bill, more than he meant to I'm sure."_

" _Why would I know that?" asked Ellis._

" _Oh, come off it," Pintel said grinning snidely now as he faced Ellis in the present. "You can't fool me, Ellis. You're a Turner if I ever did see a Turner. Trickin' me into tellin' ya about Bootstrap Bill Turner by gettin' me goin' about Captain Barbossa, eh?"_

" _But I didn't know that Barbossa had anything to do with Bootstrap Bill Turner," Ellis insisted._

 _Pintel's face fell with disappointment and he muttered something inaudible to himself until after a moment he said, "But you know Bootstrap Bill and the only one who could know of 'im would be a Turner. Ya can't fool me. Whatcha want to know about Barbossa for is b'yond me, but you ain't nothin' but a Turner. I knew two Turners an' then three with Elizabeth turnin' Turner, so I knows enough to know one when I see one. You_ look _like a Turner too. Got it in your blood."_

" _But you didn't get Turner blood from Bootstrap," said Ellis then with a nonchalant shrug._

" _No," snorted Pintel. "And the joke was on us further when we felt the gold comin' from England. Then, course, Barbossa knew what had happened. That Bootstrap sent off one on purpose. It didn't take much information from Maximo, the new person everyone hated f'r not countin' the pieces right, and Simbakka and Twigg to figure out it was likely in possession of his offspring. It was then that we knew we could kill two pieces with one stone, see."_

" _The younger William Turner's blood," muttered Ellis._

" _Ha!" laughed Pintel. "I knew you was a Turner. Yeah, William Turner, and no, we didn't get 'im. Somehow he survived the onslaught, and the captain was madder than ever. For years we attacked the English ports and some Dutch an' Spanish an' French ones too alookin' for the boy. At least we thought it was a boy. We couldn't be sure. Maximo and Simbakka knew ol' Bootstrap had a baby but they didn't know what kind, as it were. But all we needed was to feel the gold we knew, and then we'd find 'em both. The missin' piece and the hidden piece."_

 _Ellis nodded._

" _We couldn't feel the gold so well unless it was over water. On land we had to be within a certain distance, but when that piece touched the water one day finally after many a long night of sitting stagnant on the_ Pearl _with vacant eyes and drooling tongues, we felt the rush like nothin' ever filled us b'fore or after. An overwhelmin' feelin' like a rush of a wave, and since we hardly ever felt much, it was like waking from sleep with a bucket o' water over our heads, and we finally could break free of the curse!" Pintel spat excitedly._

" _So you captured William Turner and did not kill him then?"_

" _Well, see, that was a bit complicated," Pintel admitted. "You know with Jack huntin' Barbossa down and trickin' us several times over with the Turner boy and his girlfriend and all that, but in the end we did break out of the curse and get sent to jail and Barbossa gettin' shot by Jack and me and Raggy almost gettin' hanged again. Jack was always good at gettin' people almost hanged. But I got us out, me and Ragetti."_

" _And did you save Barbossa?"_

" _No," said Pintel, wrinkling his nose. "Whachya talkin' about, boy?"_

" _You said you and your friend Ragetti saved Barbossa," said Ellis._

" _Not then, no. That was all that business with Black Beard later after the Davy Jones business, and that's a tale in itself an epic long, that."_

" _But then like you said, I already know about Davy Jones, right?"_

 _Pintel paused for a moment studying Ellis and then he said, "I don't know how you do it, but even further provin' you're a Turner somehow makes me feel like your tryin' to trick me."_

" _So you didn't save Barbossa," said Ellis._

" _I ain't lyin' about that! I wouldn't lie about Captain Barbossa dead or not! Fine! I'll tell ya how we save 'im!" Pintel growled. He almost seemed to have forgotten Ellis' part of the exchange by now as he began again…_


	9. Three Little Monkeys

NINE: THREE LITTLE MONKEYS

"Brace yerselves, gents, we be on stranger tides…"

That was the last thing the captain said before the attack. Little did anyone know how much his words would mark the end of all they knew and truly lead them to tides of the unknown, the end of an era. Life would never be the same for those that survived the onslaught of the warlock commanding the enemy ship. It was not so much that the terror was different. Most of the men aboard _Black Pearl_ had seen more than most men would see if they tripled their lifespan: unearthly storms, the end of the world, the kraken and its death. This was almost cute in appearance when compared to some of the things they had seen and experienced in the past. The only difference was that the _Black Pearl_ had been unprepared for Black Beard and perhaps unlucky, especially without the luck of Jack Sparrow on her side.

Yet it seemed that luck, or perhaps Ragetti's Devine Providence at least, caused that Pintel should fall overboard and Ragetti in his attempt to help him up fell in too. Thus they abandoned ship before the others got ensnared by the rigging just then turning against them by the hand of the jolly old sea wizard. Not until they reached the cliffs did they dare to turn around and look as they grabbed the jagged stones at the water's edge for dear life.

"What's goin' on?" gasped Ragetti panting from the race there.

The screaming and wailing coming from the _Pearl_ was enough to send chills down their spines despite being already chilled with salt water up their noses and down their throats, and the enemy ship had not even boarded the _Pearl_ yet despite canon fire and roaring that did not seem so much aimed at their ship but aimed around her.

"I don't know, but it looks like people are jumpin' ship," said Pintel.

Ragetti trembled and shook his head. "No, they ain't jumpin', they're dead!"

Pintel squinted and saw that it was true. Those who came off the _Black Pearl_ were as limp as rag dolls as they fell from her deck.

Then all was silent save a strange cry from Jack echoing eerily over the misty bay in which the _Pearl_ had been trapped. As if this was not enough, hardly seconds later, something strange happened to the _Pearl_. Although Pintel and Ragetti had seen many strange things, they had to admit, this was something they thought they would never see. The whole ship, after groaning strangely, diminished somewhat. Jack railed angrily in the distance. Then in a burst of waves breaking surface beneath her the entire ship disappeared. There was no debris. No sign that there had ever been a second boat in the bay. The _Black Pearl_ seemed to have completely spirited away.

Pintel and Ragetti looked at each other cringing, and the melodramatic laugh from the enemy ship did not help matters. They pressed themselves harder against their rocks as the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ began immediately to move on and leave them behind.

Hardly had the ship left the bay and Pintel and Ragetti's hair stop being quite so on end then through the mists they saw a dinghy along the side of the cliff. They were not the only ones that had survived the unnatural occurrence, and for that they at least breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hoy! Hoy! Hey!" they called out, but when they saw who it was they were not pleased.

"They really did abandon ship!" gasped Pintel.

"The lily-livered pirates!" spat Ragetti.

"We'll jump 'em when they get here," Pintel then whispered.

Ragetti grinned. "Right," he said.

So they continued to hail them, "Mullroy! Murtogg! Over here! Hey!"

"Well, lookie here, Mr. Pintel and Mr. Ragetti," said Mullroy when they came within speaking distance. "Quit shouting like that unless you wanna bring 'em back over here."

"They won't come back over here," said Murtogg suddenly. "They've done what they wanted."

"And how do you know what they wanted?" asked Mullroy. "Since when did you become an expert on Black Beard's doings?"

"I'm not saying I'm an expert, I'm saying that a pirate captain wouldn't waste his time coming back here for the piddly remains of the crew."

"But how does he know the remains are piddly?" demanded Mullroy.

"Well, because—"

They were so busy arguing with each other as they approached, that after Pintel and Ragetti exchanged looks both annoyed and satisfied with the chance, they took that chance and jumped them without much trouble. Immediately they drew their swords from their scabbards, for they had much more experience with such savage attacks than the X-guards.

They tried to fight back, naturally and tried to keep possession of their little craft, but it was not long before Pintel and Ragetti had commandeered the dinghy and thrown Mullroy and Murtogg into the water and were rowing as fast as they could away from them.

"Hey! Come back!" cried Mullroy

"We came to rescue you, and that's how you thank us?!" cried Murtogg.

"It serves you right for tryin' to take our positions!" called Ragetti passionately as he whacked Mullroy away with an oar.

Eventually the both of them were forced to withdraw, especially since Mullroy could not swim very well even normally. With a pained face he swam even worse. They clung to the rocks and yelled with sobs and pleas after Pintel and Ragetti laughing in their disturbingly childish way.

"Amateurs," snorted Pintel with grin.

"Serves 'em right, it does," Ragetti emphasized again. "Now they'll have to climb the cliff."

Then suddenly Pintel gasped.

"What?" asked Ragetti frantically as he turned around into the direction of Pintel's gaze.

"It's the captain!" Pintel said bursting upright and thrusting a finger out towards the swimming figure in the slowly lifting mists.

"Captain Barbossa!" shouted Ragetti now jumping upright too and so fast and violently that he almost fell out of the dinghy.

While Pintel and Ragetti shouted, Barbossa's strength apparently left him, for he disappeared beneath the waves. At once the pair rowed as fast as they could towards the spot as Barbossa with a cry of rage forced himself to the surface again. Just as he disappeared a second time, Pintel and Ragetti grabbed him by the coat, almost tipping the dinghy over again.

"I'm loosin' grip on 'im!" cried Ragetti.

"Don't!" snarled Pintel.

"I'm tryin'!" Ragetti wailed, but within a few moments they had a now unmoving Barbossa dragged aboard their craft.

They gasped again to see the leg, or lack of one and the blood seeping through the sleeve of his coat that he had already apparently ripped off to try to stay the bleeding, but his eyes were closed now, and his jaw set grimly if not still somewhat fiercely.

"Captain?" asked Pintel timidly as he and Ragetti hovered over their master much like a pair of monkeys might; neither Pintel nor Ragetti remembered the animal at present.

Ragetti sat up again. "Is he dead?" he asked bluntly.

Pintel put an ear on the captain's chest, and after a moment he shook his head. "No, he ain't dead yet, but c'mon. We gotta get out of here!"

Ragetti nodded. "And redo his bandage."

"With what?" Pintel demanded.

Ragetti looked around, and since there was nothing else, he took his captain's example. Taking off his own coat, he sliced off both arms and although they were still soaking wet, he bound up the remaining half of Barbossa's leg as best he could after disposing of the other bandage sleeve.

"That'll have to work," said Ragetti as he put what remained of his coat back over his shoulders.

Barbossa growled something inaudible, and although Pintel and Ragetti tried to urge him awake again, he would not regain full consciousness.

Then came another boat in the distance as they left the impenetrable cliffs of the bay. It looked like a merchant vessel of some sort, and they took the chance that it was. A Spanish vessel, but yes, a merchant vessel it turned out to be, the _Lunarosa_. Her crew hauled them up at first suspiciously.

"Maybe they saw the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ ," whispered Pintel.

Ragetti gulped. "I hope not. They'll think we came from her. Then they'll know we're—"

Pintel nudged him roughly.

"They can't speak English," snapped Ragetti.

"I don't care, I'm not takin' that chance, and neither are you."

Ragetti sagged sulkily, but he obeyed.

It took two days to get where the _Lunarosa_ was bound. During that time Barbossa seemed rather feverish. Although his two remaining monkeys had vowed to stay at his bedside, they happened to not be around when once or twice Barbossa had been conscious more or less. Although the crew had told them this, they had not a clue what they were being told and so they assumed that their poor captain had not woken from unconsciousness since they found him in the water.

Naturally, the port was just as Spanish as the crew, and still few spoke much English, though there was communication enough to understand that there was a charity hospital not far from the port. Here too they found that most of the nuns spoke less English than the _Lunarosa'_ s crew. But here it was at last that there came someone who spoke English with better grammar than they had despite her thick Spanish accent.

"My name is Catalina Rosaria Barley," she said.

Ragetti glanced briefly at Pintel, and Pintel glanced back. Then Pintel said, "Barley? That's not very Spanish."

"It was my late husband's name, Nicholas Barley. I lived for a time on British soil but returned here after his death where I am discerning whether or not to take the habit."

She spoke with a Mediterranean passion in her voice. A sorrow lay behind her words, and her dark eyes were lowered briefly. Admittedly, she was rather pretty in a melancholy sort of way like a character from an opera; except without the powder and extra lace. She dressed rather plainly save for an emerald brooch about her neck that might have been given to her by her husband.

"Oh," muttered Pintel as though he wished he had not asked. "Well, I'm Pintel."

"I'm Ragetti," said Ragetti quickly and then added more quickly, "Is the captain going to be alright?"

"It's difficult to say so far," admitted Catalina, "but he is strong indeed that he's lived till now. _Gracias a Dios_. May I ask what happened?"

Pintel and Ragetti froze for a moment or so.

Pintel cleared his throat and was about to speak, but Ragetti suddenly interrupted, "Pirates!"

"Pirates?" repeated Catalina.

"Oh aye!" agreed Pintel after a quick glower at his partner for the interrupted. "Pirates. We was attacked!"

"By pirates!" added Ragetti.

"Of course, by pirates!" snapped Pintel shoving him aside, and then turning to Catalina with as pitiful an expression as he could muster he said, "Ms. Catalina Barley, see, we was on a merchant vessel ourselves out to sea—"

"Mindin' our own business all peaceful like," said Ragetti.

"Mindin' our own business," repeated Pintel trying to keep his temper under control. "When suddenly up comes from nowhere Black Beard hisself! You must know 'im."

"Every proper seaman has almost as much as Davy Jones," put in Ragetti.

"Well, she ain't a seaman now is she?" Pintel said rolling his eyes. "Lemme finish."

"Yes, I've heard of Black Beard and that he is known to sometimes cross these waters," said Catalina patiently.

"He killed the whole crew almost," said Ragetti. "All by hisself! Me an' Pintel were almost all that was left!"

"B'sides the captain, of course," added Pintel.

"And he wouldn'ta made do either if it hadn't been for bein' there at the right time and place."

"And if it weren't for our quick thinkin'," said Pintel tapping his head.

"We dragged him in our dinghy," said Ragetti, "and Black Beard was long gone by then so we was just started rowin' till we found the _Lunarosa_. And that's it, really."

Pintel snorted, but then nodded in agreement.

"But please say that the captain will be alright. We wouldn't know what to do without him," said Ragetti lowering his head and scratching his brow beneath his eye patch (the wooden eye had been given back to Barbossa years ago, and he never had replaced it with another one despite his earlier decision to do so).

"Oh, come off it, Rags," muttered Pintel with a sympathetic sigh; though only partly honest and partly for show. "He survived everythin' else. He'll survive this."

Catalina smiled sadly. "We'll do what we can, of course, and you are welcome to stay until we know. I'm very sorry for you both."

"Thanks, Ms. Barley," said Pintel before Ragetti could speak again. "He's a sensitive sort, Ragetti is."

Ragetti's eyes narrowed. "No, I'm not," he said quite sensitively indeed.

But Catalina had not much more time to spare at the moment. She withdrew rather abruptly as someone called her name. She was not a doctor and barely a nurse so that she was more of a go-between; though she did not seem to mind it. Pintel and Ragetti were thus left with only each other to speak to then after her quick apology for her sudden need elsewhere. Their argument ended just as quickly as her departure.

Thus for the next two days Pintel and Ragetti wandered about not straying ever too far from the hospital, and often checking on Barbossa whom they never saw awake. Mostly they were together, but sometimes they would wander apart, and there was once or twice when Pintel was surprised to see Ragetti talking to Ms. Barley.

But at last on the third day the pair finally were told that Barbossa was on the mend, and they hurried at once to see him.

#

" _Was he awake?" asked Ellis._

" _Awake enough to feel pestered by us huddlin' around him," muttered Pintel, and then he laughed. "We was all but hangin' on him like whelps. I knew nothin' would keep Barbossa down. His mind was as sharp as ever it was." Here Pintel tapped his skull. "A firm a purpose for vengeance against a man as ever I saw—against Black Beard in this case, and we was interruptin' him, see? So we shouldn'ta been so surprised when Barbossa in a fit of anger—I mean sharp in mind or not, the pain was sharp enough too, I'm sure, and the fact he had to face that he would never get his leg back didn't help neither! So in a fit of anger he told us with true pirate manners just what he thought of us, comparin' us to some bilge rats guts or cockroaches or something, and how we were never to enter his presence again or he'd be sure to show us the meanin' of agony, as it were, a gullying the both of us."_

" _The usual pirate talk," shrugged Ellis._

" _Maybe," said Pintel. "I thought so. Ragetti must have known too that after that after the captain's temper cooled we woulda been welcomed back, but here just proves again the power of Captain Barbossa. I planned to leave, see. Just for a bit till the captain was well enough to leave, but Ragetti wouldn't come with me."_

" _He wanted to stay with the captain?"_

" _He was gunna stay with Catalina. That's why," spat Pintel._

 _Maybe it was Pintel's bulldog sulk. Maybe it was his tone. Perhaps it was just the surprise of the fact that Ellis had not been expecting to hear that, but he laughed._

 _Pintel's eyes widened in surprise. Then he frowned again. "I'da shot ya for that then."_

" _Why? It's not as if a woman like that would see anything in Ragetti unless he was handsome and that's even a long shot."_

" _No, not really," said Pintel. "An' anyway I thought that if she saw anythin' in him that what he saw in her was fleetin' enough at first. I mean it was obvious he liked her, really. I wouldn'ta thought much, except that he was not usually one to take to women easily, let's just say. I almost thought he had no interest, but it wasn't that." He paused. "Well, not all of it. We lingered there for a long time, actually. We stayed clear of Barbossa, though sometimes asked how he was, but then when one night Barbossa disappeared and I wanted to go after him, Ragetti still didn't want to go."_

" _Well, was it the power of Barbossa that chased him off or the power of Catalina that dragged him in?" asked Ellis._

" _Both," said Pintel. "But if Barbossa had taken us along this wouldn't've happened, I know that much. She'd been teachin' him, see. We were in a convent hospital. She had a bible, of course, and I always knew he had it in him to get_ religion _." He spat the last word with the utmost contempt like bile in his throat. "Ever since that ol' preacher in the prison at Port Royal, I knew. I guess his mother was a religious woman. I guess it had somethin' to do with that. Facin' the gallows an' all he went back to it pretty easily. Temporarily. Till, you know, ol' Rags stole the preacher's bible when we escaped. He tried to be preachy till I talked sense into 'im. But he never was quite the same after that. It comin' to mind every now an' then. And this ol' Spanish wench reminded him again. Even popish didn't seem to matter; though maybe that one fourth Italian might've had somethin' to do with it. It was like this. He may have talked her outa bein' a nun (I still don't know what she saw in him), but she talked him into givin' up his life as a pirate—I guess he told her the truth before we parted too. He even told her his full name. And squirmin' and writhin' he tried to explain all his thoughts to me in that way he does when he's tryin' to be serious an' all. Tryin' to be pious an' all." Pintel sniffed, "and I was starin' at 'im like a gapin' fish as he was talkin' til at last I says to 'im, you know what I says to him?"_

 _Ellis shrugged._

"' _Fine!' I says. 'Have y'r Spanish dame and have her rules crush ya flat with cross in one hand an' whip in the other. I know religion. One day you'll come crawlin' back to me, Ragetti, and when that day comes I'll stick my blade through y'r gut!'"_

" _Well, that's blunt enough to get your sentiment across, I suppose," Ellis admitted._

 _Pintel laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, it did. Never saw Ragetti look at me like he did then. I'd always been his support. 'Older brother,' he called it sometimes ever since we was in London an' he no more than twelve. He even ran off with me to sea eventually with only a letter to his mum an' all, an' that's sayin' a lot cuz he was a mother's son if there ever was one if it hadn't been for me." He grinned, some humor returning. "A bad influence, I was._

" _I almost regretted what I said after he gave me that look anyhow, but I still felt it served him right after all I'd done for 'im. Taught 'im the ways of the world, I did. Saved 'im from gettin' in trouble wif the Royal Navy when we was workin' for them, an' then got us both wound up with Barbossa, a far better master. And I thought for sure as soon as I started walkin' away without another word Rags would chase after me."_

 _Ellis winced._

" _But every step I took; though firmer than the last, I didn't hear 'im runnin' up. I never heard him call all frantically like he usually did when I was angry for a long while with him. I kept goin' for some ways along the night street b'fore I finally turned 'round, and when I turned 'round Ragetti was not there, and I didn't go an' look for him." He shrugged. "I didn't find Barbossa either for a while. Not till I found out he'd got his revenge, actually, and had the_ Queen Anne's Revenge _to prove it. Those two idiots Murtogg and Mullroy had found 'im too, but I was never up as high on Barbossa's list of crew members as before. I ended up on a lesser ship. He had a lot then bein' as powerful as a pirate could get. I was proud enough to work for such a master again even if Murtogg and Mullroy, the blighters, took our positions after all. It's the captain's choice. Always. Ya learn that, y'know."_

" _Yes," said Ellis._

 _There was another pause, the longest of all as Pintel watched memories fly by past his old tired eyes. Then suddenly he looked up at Ellis again and he said quite abruptly, "But what of your part in all this!?" he demanded. "What's your story? I gave more than my share. You better have a good one or I'll show how to place a blade, got it!"_

 _Yes, yes, of course!" cried Ellis after a jump._

" _Well, on with it then," Pintel muttered._


	10. The Better End

JMJ

TEN: THE BETTER END

 _Ellis cleared his throat and straightened himself as he drank the last bit of rum from his mug._

" _Well—" he started._

" _I warn ya, it better be worth my time," interrupted Pintel with a low growl. "I'm not in a good mood anymore."_

" _I understand," said Ellis._

" _No, you don't."_

" _Yes, you're bitter because your friend decided that there was a better life than piracy and your friendship was no longer compatible. My sympathies," replied Ellis. "May I start my story, please, before your blade hand gets too fidgety?"_

 _Pintel sighed with a roll of his eyes. "Fine. Go on."_

" _So," said Ellis. "It all began with the releasing of Captain Salazar, because of Jack's unwittingly releasing his greatest fear."_

" _Salazar!" Pintel gasped. "You know about the_ Bloody Mary _'s escape from beyond? I knew that was the end of Barbossa!"_

" _So you already know this story?" asked Ellis innocently._

" _No. Not much." Pintel paused uncomfortably for a few seconds. "I knew enough to get off the sea when I heard about 'im comin'! Captain Appleton thought it best to leave sea right away too after we heard what happened to the others of Barbossa's ships. Never saw Barbossa afterwards. He met the bitter end, after all. Terrible way to go, I'm sure. Thought he'd fight it off in his usual way or get away at least, but I wasn't about to fight without Barbossa. I wouldn't've been scared with him as my captain!"_

" _Of course," said Ellis._

 _Pintel glowered, but made no mention of Ellis' slight patronizing tone._

" _Might have known Jack Sparrow had somethin' to do with it, though," he muttered instead._

" _Doesn't he always?" teased Ellis._

" _Apparently," said Pintel with a shrug. "So where'd you hear about this anyway, boy?"_

 _Ellis smiled. "That would be telling, wouldn't it?"_

" _You're too young to've been there, and there was no other Turners 'round that I know of who coulda told you."_

" _Actually there was."_

" _What?" Pintel demanded._

" _Henry Turner," said Ellis, "but he's not as important to this particular story as a woman called Carina Smyth."_

" _Why's that?" demanded Pintel._

" _You interrupt by far more than I do," Ellis commented._

 _Pintel paused again shiftily and then said in a strangely small, almost meek tone that he had not used so far, "Sorry, go on then."_

 _Ellis was now apparently in charge, for Pintel's power of the story-telling was over, so gathering up his telling abilities as well as he could Ellis said, "They needed her, because she was the only one who could stop Salazar and his crew. She was the only one who could figure out the map to finding the way to end all the curses of the sea…"_

 _And his voice was powerful enough it seemed for Pintel was quite engaged. Although he interrupted now more than Ellis still, he was thoroughly one with the tale. A dramatic change had come over Pintel as though he had become a little boy listening to the tale rather than a wiry old man. That is until Ellis revealed the truth of it. Carina was Barbossa's daughter._

" _Really?" breathed Pintel. "When'd he have a daughter?"_

" _Well, if she was about twenty years old then, you figure it out," remarked Ellis. "Her mother was Margaret Smyth, and when she died in childbirth, he felt then a bit of pity."_

" _No!" exclaimed Pintel. "Not the captain!"_

" _Yes, he's the one who gave her the book, so that she would have the jewel to sell. He brought her to a place where he hoped she would have a chance at a decent life. Of course right afterwards he went back to his usual cutthroat life."_

" _There was a time, come to think of it, when he was doin' somethin' Trident related. Didn't last, of course," said Pintel._

" _So then it should come as no surprise that she was his daughter now, and once he knew, something in his heart softened into jelly to hear that this beautiful, smart woman was searching for her father who in her mind had became a noble hero, a man of science and virtue for the better of mankind, perhaps."_

 _In utter disbelief Pintel's mouth opened slightly ajar, and he sat as though frozen as he stared hard at Ellis._

" _Thus returning to our point in the story," said Ellis, "as Salazar was coming up the chain with madness though his curse was broken, in irony, Captain Barbossa, the fearsome, ruthless pirate lord and privateer, cold-hearted to the very core previous, had truly been affected deep. In the last moments of his life he became that hero that Carina wanted her father to be. The better end, rather than the bitter, as it were, Mr. Pintel, and though he might have easily released the chain and let everyone drown within the depths of the sea leaving him a free man or he might have somehow assailed Salazar with something that would allow Barbossa to remain above, he was determined to make an end of that madman. He dove, sacrificed himself, to save—"_

" _What!" demanded Pintel then jumping to his feet from the stool. He almost fell over as he did, so that even though there would have been plenty of time for Ellis to speak if he had wanted to, Ellis only took the time to look at him in surprise._

" _You just made all that up!" snorted Pintel reseating himself in a huff. "I told you a long epic of pirate proportion, gentlemen of fortune! And you make up all this nonsense. Everyone knows anyway there's no way to just break all curses. That's stupid! And as for Captain Barbossa! I know Barbossa. I knew 'im most of my life, as it were, and you just sullied the whole thing. I win the exchange by default. Makin' up some tale that sounds like somethin' some dim-witted girl made up to make herself feel better. I bet that Carina is your mother and she just made all that up!"_

" _So now your accusing my mother, who I never said was Carina, is either a liar or a madwoman."_

" _No, I'm sayin' you made all that up on a whim cuz after I told my story you had to make up somethin' quick," laughed Pintel. He took out a dagger suddenly, though he had hardly enough grip to point it at Ellis as it shook slightly in his direction. "So buy me my drink, and I'll forget this ever happened."_

" _Alright," remarked Ellis. "But who's to say that your story is true? Most people don't believe in curses at all regardless if whether there's a way to break them all at once."_

" _Buy me another one too," grumbled Pintel._

" _Alright, alright," said Ellis and paid what Pintel felt he was owed before stepping out of his chair, and he teased, "You take care of yourself, Mr. Pintel."_

" _Girly name, girly story, what a pasty-faced little cod fish," grumbled Pintel like some half-awake badger in the middle of hibernation. "Barbossa havin' a change of heart. Ha. I never had a change of heart, an' I'm not even a pirate captain."_

" _Good night," said Ellis then. "It's late."_

"Hmph _!"_

 _Thus did Ellis leave the old pirate and make his way to bed. Yet as he left in the morning with his crew back aboard the_ Edmée _that same old pirate, though he had a bit of hangover to say the least, had to watch him leave unbeknownst to the young man. He had to pause from where he watched from the tavern window rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he recalled Ellis' story to mind._

 _Maybe, there was something to it, after all. Ellis surely would not have known even as much as he did to tell a story about Barbossa at all if he had not been telling the truth, right?_

 _Ellis disappeared down the hill towards the docks and the rising of the sun._

" _Pfft!" said Pintel then rubbing his aching skull. "Nah."_

 _And he turned away from the window to get his breakfast with what remained of a treasure he had earned while under Captain Appleton. However, it was shortly afterwards that Pintel could not help but wonder if Barbossa only originally hired Appleton because of his name. That would have been a good joke to those who knew him. Not that Barbossa had ever been as frivolous as that anymore than he would have been frivolous enough to throw his life away in Ellis' soppy tale._


End file.
